California storms just drop in bucket
Despite wet weekend, drought holds its grip
LOS ANGELES — Winter storms that doused California with much-needed rain and snow over the last week have managed to ease some dire drought conditions, but experts warned that the state still has a long way to go to truly reverse its historic dry streak.
For many, the massive storm system that soaked swaths of the West Coast with inches of rain and feet of snow was a reminder of seasons past as it snarled traffic, triggered rock slides and sparked a blizzard of “winter wonderland” posts on social media.
But as the state’s climate grows warmer and drier, sustained periods of winter rain and snow are becoming increasingly sporadic, experts say. Many fear a repeat of last year, when a similarly soggy December gave way to California’s driest January through March on record.
“December has started off obviously very well in terms of building snowpack and even soaking other areas with rainfall,” said David Rizzardo, hydrology section manager for the California Department of Water Resources. But “it’s definitely too early to tell, especially when right now it seems like we’re getting similar signals of a possible dry stretch ahead.”
There was some cause for relief, though. Rizzardo said reservoir levels had inched up from the storms, including capacity gains at Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville of about 1 percent over the week prior. The statewide snow water equivalent, or the amount of water contained in the snowpack, was at 223 percent of normal as of Monday.
“There’s no doubt it’s all beneficial, and the alternative is certainly not what we want,” he said.
David Simeral, a research climatologist at the Western Regional Climate Center and one of the authors of the U.S. Drought Monitor, said Thursday’s report will almost certainly show “some chipping away at the drought,” at least in the southern twothirds of the state. Last Thursday’s update showed 85 percent of the state under severe, extreme or exceptional drought conditions, the three worst categories.
“The back-to-back storms we’ve had over the past several weeks have definitely made an impact in terms of the drought, although they haven’t erased the deficits,” he said. “We’re going to wait and see how things play out moving forward, but I definitely would say there are some things to be optimistic about.”
Simeral said soil moisture levels had also improved from the storms. Moisture levels there now range from the 80th to 95th percentile, he said.
“These are really, really good numbers, but I don’t want to get too excited,” he said. “I’m cautiously optimistic as we move further into the winter months, but as we know, particularly from last year, we can have good early-season storms come in, and then the tap gets turned off in early January.”