Too Much Saltwater, Not Enough Fresh

While we are on the topic of water (see last post), we have some updates on the drinking water situation.  The Chronicle is reporting

Statewide snow pack measured 53% of average for the critical April 1 survey — the time when snow levels are typically at their peak, helping inform how much melt-off will pour into California’s many reservoirs. The figure is the 11th lowest in 71 years of record-keeping.  The problems, though, are somewhat muted by last winter’s big snowfall. The 40% of the state that is flirting with drought is a fraction of what it would be if there had been back-to-back dry years.

“For a dry year like this one, it’s nice that the preceding year was a wet one,” said Mike Anderson, state climatologist with the California Department of Water Resources, which conducts the snow surveys.  Snow typically provides nearly a third of the state’s water.  San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy was at about 68% of capacity last week, slightly more than average for the time.

The question on Anderson’s mind, and the minds of other weather watchers in California, is whether this winter was a one-off or if it is the beginning of a multiyear drought, along the lines of what the state experienced between 2012 and 2017.

The city of B'game is in the midst of updating our Urban Water Management Plan, an every five year exercise, that will for the first time estimate the impact of a five-year drought.  Prior plans were only required to account for a three-year drought.  I'll be watching for the update especially regarding total consumption vis a vis all of the building that was going on before the pandemic.

I'm still enamored with Ben Franklin's writings--one of which says "When the well's dry we know the worth of water."

Update:  Here is the chart tracking just how dry this season has been and indicating how bad the fire season might be.  Only 1976-77 was drier year to date.

Comments

[hollyroller@gmail.com]

You may think with all the Rain/Snow we have experienced this year that there would be a much larger snow pack. WEird.

[Joe]

Here's a study that sounds even scarier than I imagine, and that's hard to do:

Study: US West's megadrought turning into the worst in 1,200 years

KENSINGTON, Maryland (AP) — A two-decade-long dry spell that has parched much of the western United States is turning into one of the deepest megadroughts in the region in more than 1,200 years, a new study found.

What’s happening now is “a drought bigger than what modern society has seen,” said study lead author A. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University.

University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck, who studies southwestern climate and was not part of the study, calls it “the first observed multidecadal megadrought in recorded U.S. history.”

Although last year was wet, past megadroughts have had wet years and the recent rain and snow was not nearly enough to make up for the deep drought years before, Williams said.

The U.S. drought monitor puts much of Oregon, California, Colorado, Utah and Nevada and good chunks of New Mexico, Arizona and Idaho in abnormally dry, moderate or severe drought conditions.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Study-Warming-makes-US-West-megadrought-worst-in-15205571.php

[Joe]

I've just added the chart showing how dry this season has been.