Bruce Was Wondering About The California Drought

Bruce dropped a note:

Marc,

My sister sent me this link of CA drought photos taken in October. Does Mt. Shasta Lake and Lake Orville have more water in them now? Nancy was shocked at how low the water levels were in October and these photos brought it home for her. ....

Bruce

Well, the drought is still very much with us!

Hi Bruce:

There is a little more water in the lakes now, but not dramatically more. Lake Oroville is now at 37% capacity (after falling to 25% capacity in late November), but the snowpack is still only half normal (the weather has been too warm for snow). The heavy rains in early December mostly just soaked into the extremely-dry ground and runoff wasn’t impressive. We are in the middle of a very-dry, two-week period of high pressure now. I hope it ends soon. It had better end soon.

Last winter, snowpack was only 18% of normal. It was a catastrophic total failure of the wet season. California very rarely sees this kind of phenomenon. According to a recent report in Geophysical Research Letters, the last three years have been the driest in 1,200 years.

One consequence is that certain birds, like the tri-colored black bird, which used to number in the millions just twenty years ago, and tens of millions fifty years ago, may go extinct within the next five years. The drought’s impact on natural systems has been absolutely overpowering, and if it continues even just a little longer, it will be irreversible.

Basically, the California drought is the same phenomenon New Mexico experienced in 2012-13, with worse consequences, because of the natural fertility of the land and the larger number of animals, plants, and people affected. The extreme drought just shifted west in 2013-14.

Marc

And now that Really Resilient Ridge has reappeared too! Enough to make one despair....