The Snows of May

Some more notes on the weather...

First off, when this post goes up on the blog, it will be snowing in the mountains to the east. 

Snow levels could level to about 4,000 to 4,500 feet; areas with elevations above 6,000 feet could see 4 to 8 inches of snow, with localized areas getting 14 inches. 

(I believe they got a bit more to the north.)

 April ended with a brief heat wave that had people worried about flooding because there are still over a million foot acres waiting to come down...

 

... but as has happened so often this year, we seem to have caught another lucky break.

California's May forecast could limit dangerous snowmelt by Grace Toohey

Even though March 2023 was the second hottest March globally since record keeping began, temperatures in California have remained below historical averages — a trend that officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say will continue at least through next month.

“We’re actually favoring below-normal temperatures for a lot of the state,” said Scott Handel, a meteorologist with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

“You have that high snowpack in a lot of the West, including California, and also higher-than-normal soil moisture, and at the same time there’s below-normal temperatures in the ocean right off the coast of California — all of those factors should conspire to limit the chances of above-normal temperatures for [California],” Handel said.

Parts of California’s Central Valley continue to battle flooding after an extremely wet winter. While state water officials have warned residents of treacherous conditions this spring and summer due to increased river flows, NOAA’s outlook raised hopes that the so-called Big Melt might be milder than initially forecast.

“We’re not seeing any very warm periods that would cause concern just yet, and the hope is that when we do see those, or if we do see those, that they will be later in the season when the snowpack isn’t quite as large,” said Andrew Schwartz, lead scientist at UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory. “I would say things are looking pretty optimistic in terms of keeping any type of flooding — and the severity of that flooding — light.”

I don't want to dismiss the danger of upcoming floods or the damage we've seen so far, but we've managed to avoid the kind of deluge that the Central Valley is historically prone to. As natural disasters go, the events of the past few months have been minor and we desperately needed the water.

Many Californians with dry wells face long wait for fixes by Ian James

In a neighborhood surrounded by almond orchards and citrus groves southeast of Fresno, large plastic cisterns occupy the yards of many homes, and residents have learned to ration water until the next tanker truck arrives.

Even after major storms have boosted California rivers and reservoirs, many in the unincorporated community of Tombstone Territory continue to rely on state-funded water deliveries. Some of their wells went dry last year, while others have been coping with dry wells for as long as three years.

...

Groundwater depletion has progressively worsened through both wet and dry periods in the Central Valley, and accelerated over the last three years as heavy pumping sent aquifer levels plunging to new lows.

One of the encouraging signs I've noticed this year was that people (the government, journalists, the public at large) are finally getting serious about getting as much water as possible back into the ground. Historically, California infrastructure was built to get as much rain water into the ocean as quickly as possible, an approach that was short-sighted even before climate change kicked in.

Though it may seem counterintuitive, I get the feeling that the recent abundance of water has actually made folks out West think more seriously about conservation and management. The long drought seemed to produce a sense of learned helplessness -- why bother? -- but this winter has reminded us that the only thing worse than doing without is knowing that you're doing without because of wasted opportunity.