Cal88 said:concordtom said:movielover said:concordtom said:sycasey said:concordtom said:sycasey said:concordtom said:sycasey said:LudwigsFountain said:concordtom said:sycasey said:concordtom said:sycasey said:concordtom said:DiabloWags said:
Very possible.
And we are building on another year of reservoirs above their historical average:
RESSW
Geez
I was thinking a week ago it would be a drought summer with no snowpack having accumulated.
Are you suggesting we are out of that zone???
The entire state of California is officially out of drought this year.For the 1st time in 25 years not a single square mile of California is dry on the US Drought Monitor. Have to go back to December 2000 to find a similar situation. If you're 25 or younger you've always lived in a world where California has been entering or recovering from drought pic.twitter.com/X7Fz0RCjXP
— Drew Tuma (@DrewTumaABC7) January 8, 2026
As you can see, most of the other western states are still in drought conditions but CA is nice and moist!
Wow. This is hard to believe. It has not rained or snowed much from my vantage/experience.
Only two weeks of precipitation
It rained a lot in December, then a dry January, now it's raining again in February.
Yeah, I didn't think December was all that much and I don't think this last week has been all that much.
I think what matters is the water content of the Sierra snowpack. A week or two of heavy snow can make a tremendous difference
That is a huge piece, but also you can see that the reservoirs across the state are full, and I believe they are also measuring groundwater to see that it's at a good level. Basically, the whole state has gotten enough moisture to meet these metrics.
Whether or not anyone "feels" like we've gotten enough rain, the proof is in the pudding.
Ski parks all across the west are closing.
I had to find this exchange and go little kid snooty on all y'all who wanted to cash on my "senses".
Turns out, I "feel" right!
https://snowbrains.com/massive-tahoe-storm-pushes-snowpack-from-60-to-98-of-average-after-8-feet-falls-at-palisades-tahoe-ca-this-week/
The next reading is going to be abysmal.
https://www.yahoo.com/travel/news/articles/record-setting-heat-wave-affect-172547982.html
We had an unusually hot March this year, so that did reduce the snowpack for sure. But given that reservoirs are full it will take a while for the state to feel effects from that, if any.
I think, and what do I know, that they gambled that a bunch more precipitation was NOT coming so they filled them up while they could.
Had they been full and we got a bunch more, they'd have had no flood protection room.
Nice bet!!
Not sure what "they filled them up" means. Aren't reservoirs just filled up by natural water flow? They're full because we've had a few years with good precipitation.
In some wet years, they have filled the reservoirs too early and then more rain comes and they have no option but to let it all flow downstream, resulting in flooding.
You see, dams serve 3 purposes:
Flood protection
Carryover supply into summer
Recreation
Sometimes they "bet" more torrential rains are coming in February, so they release water in January. But if no more rain comes, they wish they hadn't released all that water before summer.
Or, they could bet opposite and get burned with floods.
This year, they did perfect. Not a ton of rain, and filled early
Get it?
They could also resume flood irrigation to help refill our aquifers.
We've had at least three great years of rain.
Which delta farmers do you propose we flood out first?
Tough issues to solve for.
The rice fields.
Turns out that works!
Kinda.
Check this report out about rice fields, zooplankton, and salmon!!
