Extreme climate is lashing California with torrential rain and snow — the newest in a sequence of storms going again to New Year’s Eve which might be referred to as “atmospheric rivers.” The lengthy, slim bands of moisture from the tropics have dumped days of deluge within the West and might carry as much as 15 occasions the amount of the Mississippi River in every storm system.
Atmospheric rivers are crucial — “the main source for moisture for the western part of the U.S., especially the coastal states,” mentioned Alex Hall, director of the Center for Climate Science at UCLA.
But the deluge is probably not sufficient to beat again California’s devastating drought.
“We are getting exactly what we need to bust the drought, but we still have two-thirds of the wet season to come and we could get very little precipitation,” mentioned Hall. “You know, it’s very unpredictable.”
Scientists say local weather change is making extremes extra excessive. Droughts are drier and these kinds of winter storms are wetter as a result of a hotter ambiance holds extra moisture.
So when it rains, it pours. That’s refilling California’s critically low reservoirs and piling up snowpack within the Sierra, which is now greater than 200% of regular.
“Our snowpack is actually off to one of its best starts in the past 40 years,” mentioned Sean de Guzman of the California Department of Water Resources.
But in Los Angeles, which imports greater than half its water provide from Northern California and the drought-ravaged Colorado River, all of the rain is a torrent of wasted alternative. Most of the world’s storm water is funneled into the concrete-lined Los Angeles River and flushed into the ocean — an effort to stop flooding L.A.’s prized possession: actual property.
“We capture about 20% of our storm water,” mentioned Bruce Reznik, government director of LA Waterkeeper, a corporation that serves as L.A.’s “water watchdog.”
“Between the storm last week and the storm that’s happening now, I bet we’re gonna see 20, 25, 30 billion gallons of water just going out the L.A. River into the ocean,” he mentioned.
L.A. County is spending practically $300 million a yr to seize extra storm water, together with so-called spreading grounds the place runoff can seep into the soil — useful in the course of the extended drought.
