Hey, everybody.
ABC 10 meteorologist Brendan Minchev here.
It's been a while since
we've done one of these.
I don't think we've done
one since before Christmas,
but with the weather has finally cleared up,
it's quiet again.
So it's time for a drought update,
and a lot has changed since before
Christmas in terms of our drought,
taking a look at the month of
January 7.54 inches of rain has
fallen so far downtown Sacramento.
The average to date is about 2.7 inches,
which means we're nearly five inches.
Above where we normally are, four January.
That's only counting January.
When we look at the season
October 1st to September 30th,
so far 18.22 inches.
That's more than all of the
rain we saw last water year.
Average today is almost 9 inches,
which means we are over 9 inches to where
we normally are to this point in the year.
So this is good.
We're on the positives both on the month
and for the water year as a whole.
Still pretty early though water year started
October 1st coming up on the end of January.
Still some wet season to go.
But this can't be the end, right?
We can't just turn the taps
off and call it good.
We're gonna need some more water to fall.
But it's not just Sacramento
that's doing well.
It's Stockton, it's Fresno,
it's San Francisco.
It's South Lake Tahoe.
Basically,
the entire state of California
right now is on the plus side
when it comes to precipitation.
Look, even Santa Barbara,
Los Angeles, San Diego,
all doing well in terms of
their water for the season.
Now looking at departures from normal.
Blue was good, yellow,
bad Palm Springs only 1/10 of an inch
below where they normally are in Los Angeles.
About 5 inches above San Diego,
3 inches above Santa Barbara.
7 inches above Stockton.
9 inches to the good San Francisco.
Almost 11 inches to the
Good South Lake Tahoe.
Almost a foot in terms of liquid water.
More than what they normally
see to this point in the year.
On the water year that is running Eureka.
Also doing well so far.
So lots of blue here signifying
numbers are doing good.
We want that to continue as
we finish off the wet season.
Still a couple more months to go at least.
In our wet season,
but we need that Reagan,
we need that right to keep following
because when it gets dry in California,
it gets very dry.
In California,
the month of January has been
very wet and anything but dry.
Only a few days.
You see that there in the red or red
or orange colors are those dry days.
Every other day this month in green,
we've had some rainfall.
The rainiest day was January 9th when we
had 1.3 inches fall downtown Sacramento.
Again.
That total for the month is
in that 7 inch range,
the average today.
Is 2.7 inches.
So this is very good.
It's done a lot of good for us.
We are entering a bit of a dry stretch now
as we finish off the month of January,
but looking 8 to 14 days ahead,
that would be January 29th to February 4th.
The Climate Prediction Center says it'll
likely be cooler for the West Coast
than average in terms of temperature.
Also will likely be wetter
than average as we go.
End of January, start of February.
That green color signifying, of course,
likely wetter. That's good news.
That means this.
Pattern won't stick around for too long,
just a couple of weeks or so.
And indeed, when you start to look out
about 2 weeks on those weather models,
you start to see some
rain starting to move in.
And that high pressure that's been
blocking us now and will continue
to do so over the next week,
that high pressure kind of starts
to move on out of the way,
allowing that door to reopen
for some more rain.
So we're not done yet.
I think we'll actually have
a couple more days in January
with some measurable rainfall,
and we'll see how February starts as well.
But right now, just a temporary dry stretch.
But the rain that we've gotten has
done a lot of good for our drought.
So the latest drought monitor abnormally dry,
the lowest level drop that yellow color.
We see a few pockets down in
Southern California and then also
up on the very North Coast here.
That's 7% of the state,
most of the state in that
moderate drought category.
This kind of tan,
beige,
orange color here doesn't quite include
Sacramento right on that cusp between
the moderate and severe drought,
which is still 42% of the state.
Let's take a little bit closer of a look.
We'll kind of zoom in a little bit now.
Kind of go around the state
in terms of our drought,
take a closer look and see how
things are doing because we've
seen a lot of improvement,
lots of different Southern California
looking pretty good again saw that
abnormally dry down here in the yellow,
even Los Angeles to the north
seeing some yellow there that
abnormally dry area still drought,
but it is the lowest level.
As we work up and towards Northern
California, you see those beige colors,
those orange colors that is that
moderate to severe drought category.
But you don't see any red on the map,
not even up at the very far
point which is where.
We had just .3% of the state still
in that extreme drought category.
But no, no extreme drought,
no exceptional drought anymore.
But we do still have that severe
drought in the Sacramento Valley.
So again, we need the rain,
we need more.
But we've had it's a good break
because we've had a lot,
we've had it all in a short amount of time.
So the break is nice,
but we do need more.
Can't stress that enough.
We're not out of the drought just yet.
A lot more work still to be done.
But state of California is looking a
lot better now than it was this time.
A one month ago,
so positives to be taken away from
that starting with the water year,
this is what the drought looked like.
You can see that big pocket there
of that exceptional drought
category that was 17% of the state.
And again that is all gone now
with significant improvement
in the San Joaquin Valleys.
It really all across the state we've seen
significant improvement and that's good,
not done yet, more to go,
but let's talk about our snowpack
now this was updated January 20th,
so the northern Sierra 197% of average today.
246% of average today for the
Central Sierra and 283% of average
today for the southern Sierra.
More importantly,
the number we really want to look
at is that percent of April 1st,
average April 1st.
Typically when that snowpack is at
its highest, it's at its greatest.
So when we start to talk about that's
how we're doing really on the season
as we work through the wet months,
that percentage April 1st average,
that's that key number and there's
good news to report there too.
Northern Sierra, 102% of April 1st,
average,
central Sierra.
3000 and 30% of April 1st average and 149% of
April 1st average for the southern Sierra.
So we're all above average really,
no matter how you look at it right now,
statewide average to date 240% and
that percent of April 1st average 126%
for the state snowpack as a whole.
That is some really good news.
And as long as we don't have
a big warm spell,
we don't have a lot of rain
events as we go through February,
March and into April, we're going to
keep that snowpack as we go into those.
Prior months.
Our reservoirs now updated January 21st,
Shasta now over 50% capacity,
same deal in Oroville,
61% capacity at Oroville.
In fact Oroville is now
108% of its average today.
That is good news.
On the plus side,
she asked to still has a little
work to do 86% of average Folsom
though a lot has been made of full.
So we'll talk more about that
in just a minute.
It's at 100 and 123% of average
and the capacity is at 55%.
So we're doing well on all of our reservoirs.
Trinity though it needs some more.
Brain,
this is one of the big reasons
why when you take a look at the
state as a whole and especially
the Sacramento River watershed,
that Trinity numbers are kind of
weighing it down a little bit.
So average today is only about 50% for
Trinity and the capacity is only 30%.
And that's where that water line is
right there and obviously has come up.
You can see how much it's made
in the month
of January. But this is the average line here
and this is where it actually is right now.
So there's still a ways to go,
especially for Trinity Lake up
there in far Northern California.
Shasta though, one of the big ones
that really needed that rain as well.
Shasta got a lot of it.
You can see where it was as we
worked through October, November,
December and then January hit
and look at all that rain.
It is filling up nice capacity, 54% and
again it's at 86% of its average to date.
So there's average for right
now and there's where it is.
So we're doing good at Shasta.
Two, let's talk a little closer to home,
talking about Folsom Lake,
123% of the average data,
55% capacity, you can see that.
Average line there and you can see this
blue line signifying the water levels.
A lot has been made of
Folsom because it filled up.
We got a lot of rain.
You can see that.
Look at how quickly it filled
up with those new year storms.
And then every storm we had after that
they had to let some of that water out.
Because Folsom is used primarily #1
for flood control, not water storage.
The primary charge of Folsom
Dam and Folsom Lake is.
To help minimize and mitigate
flooding downstream,
downstream is Sacramento.
So it's a big deal.
That is the primary reason Folsom exists.
It does help to serve.
Our water capacity,
our water storage,
it also helps to generate
electricity via hydropower.
It does also have ecological uses as well,
but all of those are secondary
to protecting Sacramento and
downstream areas from flooding.
That's why they had to
release that water out.
They went too far above the average.
They went too much for too early
in the season in terms of rainfall
that that water had to be released.
It's starting to come back up again.
You can see they're putting water back
in as we're entering a drier stretch.
And that's all part of what
the dam operators at Folsom do.
We spoke to Drew Lessard with the Bureau
of Reclamation who works up at Folsom.
He had a lot to say and he
answered a lot of our frequently
asked questions about Folsom.
So take a look.
I think you'll find this really interesting.
Flood protection is,
is what I would typically say is first
among equal for project purposes.
It is the public safety aspect
of why we're here and we need to
make sure that we deliver that
for certain and then as we can
deliver the other project. Purposes
in the middle of the drought.
It's probably not the best optics to be
releasing a lot of water,
but flood control is Folsom's first
priority and most important mission.
When the New year storm hit or
the New Year's Eve storm hit and we
got a huge inflow on New Year's Day,
we encroached in the flood control space,
which tells us that we have to make
releases to evacuate that flood
control space for the next storm
that's coming in and at the time.
We were seeing floods or at least
storm events stacking up all
the way to the 17th of January.
So we couldn't really sit on that.
We had to evacuate it.
So we went right back down
to the flood control curve,
the the the minimum that we could
provide and then we looked at the
following events that occurred over
the last week now and we were able to
pass those safely with not having to go up.
Too high in releases and now we're
encroached and we're releasing
about 10,000 cubic feet per second,
which if you want to consider
cubic foot is a basketball about
the size of a basketball.
And we're kind of ebbing to where
we're starting to lower the reservoir
elevation and we're getting back
to that flood control curve.
In 2017, Folsom updated its
water control manual to coincide
with its new auxiliary spillway.
With it, the operators are
allowed to hold more water than
the previous manual by looking
at incoming storm forecasts.
It looks at various forecasts,
the 120 hour forecasts and various other
ones all the way up to the 24 hour forecast.
And if anyone of those is critical,
in other words it's of a
magnitude that warrants us to
reduce the reservoir elevation.
We will go ahead and make releases in
advance of that storm to make sure we
have enough space when that storm hits.
Our operators are are always trying
to balance all of those competing
interests that we have with
managing the reservoir like this.
So obviously if we take a look at
the forecast and we feel that.
We could maybe keep things a little higher,
especially near the end of the the the
spring when we're moving into summer.
We'll try to maximize what we can get.
Storage at the end of May for water supply,
power, all of those other project purposes,
but they cannot take a risk.
If there's a public safety concern,
they're going to evacuate and get
prepared for that next storm.
The
decision to release water
is not made alone, however.
The Bureau of Reclamation.
Works closely with other partners
across the state to manage the
timing and the amount of water
going downstream reclamation.
Is part of a flood operations
center that includes reclamation,
National Weather Service,
Department of Water Resources,
who manages Oroville and
the Corps of Engineers.
They get to go together daily
during flood season to say,
all right, you know,
can we hold back here because
we've got a big inflow on this
dam that we have to clear.
And so they're coordinating
all of those things pretty much
throughout the flood season.
Fortunately, unfortunately,
have you want to see it is Shasta
and Oroville are not filled right
yet and are not encroaching.
So there's no need to really
worry about that.
As far as the future looks,
the snowpack holds a lot of promise
for about 200% of average
snowpack and this watershed.
So that's great.
I mean that's wonderful news.
What we would want to see
as we go through this is.
Keep adding to it a little bit.
Keep the precipitation coming at
a moderate rate and allow it to
just naturally melt in that end
of April through may time frame
so we can fill up and that's
kind of what we're looking for.
But as things stand now,
drew is feeling pretty good about our
water situation from the snowpack
to the state of our big reservoirs
up north and especially Shasta,
things are looking up
really with the CVP.
It's all about Shasta if we can.
Phil, Shasta then we'll manage.
Folsom doesn't necessarily help
the bigger picture so much.
I mean, so what's really good is Shasta
is forecast to get pretty full this year,
which it hasn't in the
last three or so years.
So I think add that probably
similar scenario at Oroville plus
us probably filling this year.
It's good news for the CVP now,
are we technically out of the drought yet?
No. And we still have several
months to see this thing through.
But it looks promising at this point.