Hello, my name is Rob Karl Mark,
and I'm a meteorologist here atC
10 based in Northern California.
So a lot of my focus will
be on our viewing area,
which is roughly Fairfield,
Vacaville, up to about Oroville,
down through Turlock in the Central Valley
and then over to Truckee in the High Sierra.
So that's our general zone,
but I'll add in a little bit moe
context for other areas of California
because this is a big year for .
This has been quite a winter and today
on Tuesday is the first official full day
of spring and we've got a lot of stuff.
Going on what is behind me is t1
billion repair job to the Oroville Spillway.
If you don't know what Oroville,
it's a big reservoir that was bt
back in the 60s by the state of
California to provide flood protection
as well as a huge basin for watr
to use for the long hot summer.
We all know the water need is te
because it basically doesn't ran
for months and months and months
and this is a huge resource.
But when they're using the spillway like
they are at 30,000 cubic feet per second.
What they're actually doing is
trying to prevent the water from
getting too high in the lake,
and I really take down the the possibility
of it going over the top of the,
which would destroy it.
We've had dam failures in the pt
in California, believe it or no,
the Saint Francis Dam is the
most notable example.
With that said,
this is a controlled release,
it's working well as designed,
and it's going to be just fine.
I'm not worried about the lake
level or quote UN quote,
wasting water because there's so
many more customers downstream
if you don't know about this.
Reservoir.
This goes into the Feather Rive,
which then goes to the Sacramento River,
which then goes out to the
delta and out to sea.
But along the line there is many
other agricultural interests.
There's a huge place called the
Thermalito Bay and that's where
they store some water for rice n
the future and then downstreams
City of Sacramento pulls water
out of the river itself.
So there's everyone is
connected to this system.
And again preventing flooding
is issue #1 right now.
And folks, don't worry.
Orville itself, the lake has come up to 100.
Great.
Since the 1st of December, just remarkable.
And other big reservoirs are in
much better shape right now.
For example, Shasta,
the biggest one in the state,
it's actually run by the federal government.
But what we have at the moment s
it's basically at at its historl
average more than 75% full.
And this will continue to go up for weeks,
if not a month or more as we get
more rain and snow melt as well.
Orville,
like I mentioned in good shape
and some of the larger but more
shallow reservoirs like Folsom,
they keep it a little bit.
Lower than you would think just
so they can make room for a big
storm that could affect us.
And we've got many more storms along the way,
but not a huge one.
So again, our reservoir situatin
situation is really, really goo.
What the storm is today for at t
Northern California and parts of
Southern California as well is t
this is just tough to plan for .
You know, we've got work, we've got school,
we've got sports like baseball, softball,
the fields are wet in some cities are
places they just won't let you practice.
They want to ruin the field.
So there are some just work and life issues.
That the rain is affecting us t.
The rivers are high,
but they are coming down,
which is a big concern for
the San Joaquin River.
So we're going to be in
better shape hopefully soon.
And everyone's looking forward o
the weekend at least here in Northern
California as we should be looking for
sunny skies and just great weatr
all around and a break from thi.
So as I'm taping this early
on Tuesday morning,
you could see the next system rolling
in with early morning commutingn
and also some snow as well as fs
rain in the bucket for these ci.
Everybody's at their seasonal average,
so everything else is just grav.
On top,
as far as the snowpack,
not only do we get our seasonal snowpack,
we're doubled in that and we're
still adding it.
As I'm recording this Vail Reso,
they have 3 ski areas in Northern California.
They've got Kirkwood,
they've got Northstar and
they've got heavenly are now all
extending their closing dates.
In fact,
Kirkwood is going to be open
till Mother's Day in mid-May.
Just imagine that.
So if you're watching this from
the East Coast, come on over,
you can go skiing all the way
in the middle of May.
With that said,
our drought is essentially
disappearing at a very quick pa.
Most of the state is out of drot
at this point or at least very w
level drought which is not a big
concern and this is the 10 day projection.
We've got more incoming moisture
including what we're going to see today.
One thing that's very interestig
about this storm,
it's got a really tight area ofw
pressure and it's still bottoming out.
In other words,
it's still intensifying and
we're going to be approaching
record low areas of pressure,
record low pressure I should sar
this month in March if it makest
goes ashore in places like Santa Cruz,
we're watching the rain,
we're watching some low level flooding.
Concerns driving around is an
issue and of course we've got ne
weather once we get past this,
but we still have to get past t.
So we've got rain and snow for
the next couple of days and then
it's going to start winding dow.
But because we're not totally in the clear,
we just have to hang on to the
possibility of pop up showers t,
tomorrow and Thursday,
the focus of the snow and the snowpack,
at least for the really big tot.
It's going to be central southern Sierra.
They could be looking at 343 to four feet
of snow in some places over the coming days.
And remember, this is a place tt
basically has triple the amount of snow
that they typically see in a se.
So that is a concern for roof
loading and other things as wel.
With that said, here's our brea,
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we love that.
And then wouldn't you know it,
here we go again.
We have more storms stacked up
the beginning of next week,
but they're not monster storms.
So they basically keep things moving along.
We love these breaks in between,
especially when it's on a weeke,
but just know as far as the
winter being done with us,
it's not.
Even though it's spring.