California’s recent wet weather has not only added more than 6.4 billion gallons of fresh water to Lake Tahoe, raising the entire lake level by 2 inches, but now according to recent news reports, has produced so much new snow that it is considered “136% of normal” according to state officials. On Wednesday, state workers measured the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada at 54 inches. So the question is, how will the state’s “water rationers” react now?
What you can expect them to say is the “drought is not over.” And perhaps it isn’t quite yet, but given the current conditions, and with San Francisco and other parts of the state bracing for record “king tides” as a result of the appearance soon of the first “El Niño” weather conditions as predicted by NASA (caused by a pocket of warming in the Pacific Ocean that will force precipitation towards us), expected throughout early 2016, perhaps now is indeed the time for policymakers to start thinking more optimistically, even about plans for lifting water rationing in the state, and for regulators to start planning on loosening up on water controls.
The mountain snowpacks provide a whopping 30% of California’s water, and experts consider the current snowpack to contain twice as much water as at the same time last year. Rain obviously provides plenty of water as well, and in a typical El Niño year, rainfall in California is also doubled. And the experts say that the El Niño has not even “kicked-in” yet!
So, perhaps Californian’s will soon have plenty of water to be thankful for in 2016!
