A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
March 27, 2009
2. Supply –
By Nick Cruit
BONANZA NEWS SERVICE
LAKE TAHOE — In 2007, a very warm, dry March stripped the
Despite another dry March in 2008, the snowpack average at that same time was a promising 87 percent in Tahoe. But by summer, when one of the driest springs on record had Chad Blanchard, chief deputy in the federal water master's office in Reno, saying lake levels for 2008 were almost as bad as the year before, even though the snowpack was double what it was in 2007, a significant amount of hope was placed on the 2009 winter to get out of the drought, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared in California on June 4, 2008.
Today, one year and a state of emergency later — declared by Gov. Schwarzenegger one month ago because of persistent drought conditions — the snowpack in the Lake Tahoe basin stands at 80 percent of average. And as the major snow-producing months give way to the spring melt — most hydrologists mark that date around April 1 — hydrologists and water resource officials are bracing for a third round of drought conditions this summer.
Updated earlier this week, a report from the conservation service forecasts
A below average rise of the lake means less water is coming out of the dam in Tahoe City, which means reserve reservoirs will likely be tapped in order to meet Floriston rates, a century-old law designed to guarantee a minimum flow of Truckee River water, Greenlee said.
Nevertheless, water resource officials are ready to deal with the shortages.
“It’s not quite as bad as previous years, and what that means for us at this point is it’s going to be business as usual,” said Bill Hauck, water supply coordinator for the Truckee Meadows Water Authority.
Floriston rates should be met into the fall months, Hauck said, and in the next few weeks, the water authority plans to open up the dam at
“It will be another below average year, but the snowpack is still good enough that the reservoirs are going to recover somewhat,” Hauck said. “This year could have ended up a lot worse, the early March storms helped tremendously,” he added.
Still, the real problem is that reservoir storage in Northern California and
The level of
As for
“It’s certainly a much better situation than we had a month ago,” Gehrke, “we may lose ground but we’re not going to gain much... a lot of it depends on how the spring goes.”
Not this year
Unlike last year’s weather pattern — an active January and February followed by one of the driest springs on record — moderate early and late winter storms have prevailed this year.
And while the biggest storm of the season padded the Lake Tahoe basin snowpack by 12 percent — reaching 90 percent for the first time this winter — with six feet of snow in high elevations during the first four days of March, it’s been mostly moderate precipitation that has sustained a snowpack average in the low to mid 80s through most of February and March.
“December, February and March were all pretty decent months if you look at them separately,” Greenlee said. “The thing that really hurt was January, which had very little snow and dragged snowpack averages down considerably.”
Weather patterns change from year to year, and it’s not usual to have similar back-to- back patterns, said Wendell Hohmann, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in
Still, two previous years of well below normal precipitation means even if a series of storms boosted the snowpack up to average, it wouldn’t help much with the current drought situation, according to Rhett Milne, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Reno.
“We could get out of a drought in one season, but it’s not going to happen this season unless something exceptional were to happen,” he said. “We would have to get a prolonged intense period of precipitation lasting weeks to really make a dent.”
Based on the average precipitation data collected from 1971-2001, those kinds of storm patterns rarely happen this time of year. Of the 37.2 inches of precipitation received in
Soaking up resources
With daytime high temperatures closing in on 60 degrees and no significant precipitation in the forecast, the Sierra snowpack may have already peaked. And as the snow begins to melt, weather conditions from last fall may play a significant roll during the runoff season this spring.
Ideally, a wet fall saturates the ground with water and leaves it “primed” under the snowpack through winter, according to Gary Barbato, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in
The last two winters, however, were preceded by dry falls and much of the spring runoff was soaked up by the ground, never making it to where it was so desperately needed. When the three-to-four-foot snowpack melted around
But even though we entered this winter through a pretty dry fall, some warm winter storms have produced enough rain so that the soil won’t soak up the entire spring melt, according to Greenlee.
“Water supplies are going to be tight,” he said. “We’re going to see some pretty dry conditions by mid summer.” #
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DWR’s California Water News is distributed to California Department of Water Resources management and staff, for information purposes, by the DWR Public Affairs Office. For reader’s services, including new subscriptions, temporary cancellations and address changes, please use the online page: http://listhost2.water.ca.gov/mailman/listinfo/water_news . DWR operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs. Inclusion of materials is not to be construed as an endorsement of any programs, projects, or viewpoints by the Department or the State of
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