Still calculating this whiplash
of weather we've had this year as
far as one hundreds most ever for
downtown Sacramento, totaling 44.
For Stockton, the most ever at 40.
Sacramento Executive 29.
That's going to rank 6th.
And from Modesto 28th, ranking 7th.
All of this falling in line with
what was a historic September.
Warm overnight lows, warm afternoon highs.
We had the warmest overnight.
Those on record for Sacramento,
Stockton and Modesto in the 70s to
near 80 and the hottest ever September
temperatures from 112 to 116.
In fact, that 116 degree temperature for
downtown Sacramento the hottest ever,
breaking our 1925 July 17th record.
So definitely some hot weather here as
we wrapped up the month of September.
As we head into the next couple of months,
our average temperatures tend to go down.
We'll see occasional bumps of heat in there,
but overall cooling conditions and
also our rain averages start to go up.
The rainiest time of the year,
December, January and February.
And we're really gonna need every
drop of this,
especially when we take a look at
the cumulative drought impacts here,
the driest three years on record,
starting back in the water year of 2020.
Now,
Janine Jones from the Department
of Water Resources says, though,
our water supplies aren't the same.
Across the board, though,
California's large urban water
agencies actually do a good job of
providing reliable water supplies.
Most of almost all of the
supply shortage problems,
the urgent problems that we
see with water systems are
with small water systems,
especially those in rural areas
and especially those that rely
on fractured rock groundwater,
which is an unreliable
source during droughts.
Taking a look at what that
groundwater looks like on a map,
this is basically the water.
Underneath our feet,
we don't see it unless it's
pumped up through a well and then
we can bring it to the surface.
But you can see across the board
here our hydrological drought.
As we break this up into categories here,
it's pretty much read
throughout the entire state.
So we're basically in that drought
category for our groundwater situation now.
Conversely, we had a decent monsoon
season and some late season showers.
And so when we take a look at
some of the other impacts,
say the agricultural impacts,
our soil moisture is doing OK.
At this point in the season,
also for our ecological drought
situation with the energy release
component that basically says if
soil moisture is a little bit higher
or fuel is a little bit more moist
and that reduces that fire risk.
And we're on the wetter side of things
for that particular category of drought.
But when we look at our snow drought,
we're seeing a lot of red dots
up here throughout the Sierra.
So once again,
we're in that drought category,
snow water equivalent is if we
were to take the entire snowpack.
Melted down,
move it into our rivers or creeks or
streams and of course our reservoirs,
how much of that would actually
result in water.
And unfortunately for Shasta and Oroville,
we just didn't have a whole lot.
So we already started off with
big deficits heading into the
dry part of the year.
These numbers typically go down pretty
low at this point in the season.
We're coming off of months of
basically no water coming in from
the sky as that rain shuts off
pretty much in the early part of.
Him, so Shasta,
Oroville and Folsom all at
about 33 to 35% full right now,
sitting at 60 to 70% of average.
Now as we take a look at New Melones,
we're only at 40% of average,
26% full right now.
Don Pedro, not looking terrible,
76% of average, 52% full.
Right now our rainfall totals there
is 0 because we just reset that
rain gauge for our water year,
starts up on October 1st and
then it will take us all the way
through the wet part of the year.
In the next year on September 30th,
so we have some deficits right now.
But again,
it's really not that big of a deal
because our rainy part of the year
hasn't really started to ramp up.
That'll be November through
pretty much March of next year.
How did this last one shape up?
Remember that huge atmospheric river that
we got at the end of October last year?
It was an AR5 exceptional category.
We had some historic rainfall come
on through and then pretty much
that tap went dry in November.
Back to some wet conditions in December
and then record dryness hit again,
January, February and March.
Now our peak snowpack typically hits
right in between March and April.
After that, if we're not
seeing a whole lot of snow,
we're in dire straits because our water
is at its highest demand from April
all the way through September when we
typically have our driest part of the year.
I mentioned earlier that we had a fairly
decent monsoon season and that gave us some.
Surface moisture moving in for the soil
moisture or some agricultural impacts
that were advantageous for us there,
but then that record heat again
hit in September.
Now we're resetting the water year
and so it's all about what is ahead.
We made some good strides given that
we had those huge atmospheric rivers
come through in October and December.
So when we look at where we ended
last year's water year compared
to this year's water year,
it looks a little bit better.
But I do want to go back to
that hydrological situation,
the groundwater,
because Janine is basically
saying we need to do a lot to get
us back to where we should be.
We have to think about adapting
some of our backbone infrastructure
so that we can take these five
flows when they become available on
a very intermittent basis in big
storms and make better use of them,
such as new infrastructure needed
for groundwater recharge projects.
In fact, one of the headlines that
we're seeing is the Sacramento
Valley is now starting to sink.
This is called land subsidence and
we've been seeing this for years
throughout the San Joaquin Valley,
especially the Central Valley.
Sports Fresno and Bakersfield.
But now as we zoom in a little bit closer,
we're actually starting to see some
of this appearing in parts of Colusa
and Yolo counties near Arbuckle,
all the way in through Davis,
just off to the West of Sacramento.
Some of the impacts now you can
see here our picture with Michelle
Sneed from USGS that in 1988,
this is where the ground was by 2016.
This is where the ground has sunk
in parts of the Central Valley.
So again, some of the impacts water quality.
Decline.
So when we pump that to the surface,
it's actually not as great as quality as
if we were to keep that groundwater intact.
Salinity,
we get that sea water intrusion
because we've got a bit of
inconsistencies with the ground level.
So we start to see a bit more of
that push inland because gravity
is going to take it inland.
Also our conveyance system,
how we move water through the state,
the delivery is partially damaged and
again that's going to take some work to
get that back up where it needs to be.
What will help?
It's some water so that we have
more surface water and we don't
have to pump as much groundwater.
But right now, we're in a La Nina pattern.
What does that mean for us?
Well,
we've got the cool water in
the Equatorial Pacific,
and traditionally that means a
wetter Pacific Northwest and can
mean a wetter Northern California,
a drier Southern California,
and we all share the same water.
So unfortunately,
it's not looking too good at this
point in the forecast models.
We take a look at a couple of different.
Metals.
This is the North American
Multimodel ensemble,
and this is an October where we're
calling for some dry conditions.
By November,
a little bit more moisture starts
to move our way and then December
we are back to the dry conditions,
but we got a couple of different
models that we look at.
This is another one,
the European model,
and it's looking a little bit
more wet throughout the entire
state for the month of November.
Comparatively, though,
overall,
it's looking fairly dry heading
into our rainy part of the year.