Sacramento, CA…Today\u2019s final snow survey of the year found more bare ground than snow as
\nCalifornia faces another long, hot summer after a near-record dry winter
\nToday\u2019s manual and electronic readings recorded the statewide snowpack\u2019s water content \u2013
\nwhich normally provides about a third of the water for California\u2019s farms and cities — at a mere
\n–18 percent of average for the date.<\/p>\n
Just as telling was the April 1 survey that found water content at only 32 percent of average at
\nthe time of year it normally is at its peak before it begins to melt into streams and reservoirs with
\nwarming weather.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone who doesn\u2019t think conservation is important should drive up the hill and take a look,\u201d
\nsaid DWR Director Mark Cowin. \u201cCoupled with half our normal rainfall and low reservoir
\nstorage, our practically nonexistent snowpack reinforces the message that we need to save
\nevery drop we can just to meet basic needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most dramatically, today\u2019s electronic readings show a dismal 7 percent of average water content
\nin the northern Sierra snowpack that helps fill the state\u2019s major reservoirs which currently are
\nonly half full.<\/p>\n
Electronic water content readings for the central and southern Sierra are 24 and 18 percent of
\nnormal, respectively.<\/p>\n
Snow surveyors from DWR and cooperating agencies manually measure snowpack water
\ncontent on or about the first of the month from January through May to supplement and check
\nthe accuracy of real-time electronic readings from remote sensors up and down the mountain
\nranges.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
California\u2019s reservoirs obviously will not be significantly replenished by a melting snowpack this
\nspring and summer.<\/p>\n
Lake Oroville in Butte County, the State Water Project\u2019s (SWP) principal reservoir, today is at
\nonly 53 percent of its 3.5 million acre-foot capacity (65 percent of its historical average for the
\ndate). Shasta Lake north of Redding, California\u2019s and the federal Central Valley Project\u2019s (CVP)
\nlargest reservoir, also is at 53 percent of its 4.5 million acre-foot capacity (61 percent of its
\nhistorical average). San Luis Reservoir, a critical south-of-Delta reservoir for both the SWP and
\nCVP, is at 47 percent of its 2 million acre-foot capacity (52 percent of average for this time of
\nyear).<\/p>\n
With most of the wet season behind us, it is highly unlikely late-season storms will significantly
\ndampen the effects of the three-year drought on parched farms or communities struggling to
\nprovide drinking water.<\/p>\n
On January 31, with no relief from the three-year drought in sight, DWR set its allocation of
\nState Water Project (SWP) water at zero. The only previous zero allocation was for agriculture
\nin the drought year of 1991, but cities and others that year received 30 percent of requested
\namounts.<\/p>\n
After late season storms, DWR on April 18 increased this year\u2019s allocation to 5 percent of
\nrequested SWP amounts. If it stands, this will be the lowest across-the-board allocation in the
\n54-year history of the SWP.<\/p>\n
Collectively, the 29 public agencies that deliver SWP water to more than 25 million Californians
\nand nearly a million acres of irrigated agriculture requested 4,172,536 acre-feet of water this
\ncalendar year.<\/p>\n
The final SWP allocation for calendar year 2013 was 35 percent of the 4.1 million acre-feet
\nrequested. In 2012, the final allocation was 65 percent of the requested 4.1 million acre-feet. It
\nwas 80 percent in 2011, up dramatically from an initial allocation of 25 percent. The final
\nallocation was 50 percent in 2010, 40 percent in 2009, 35 percent in 2008, and 60 percent in
\n2007. The last 100 percent allocation \u2013 difficult to achieve even in wet years because of Delta
\npumping restrictions to protect threatened and endangered fish \u2013 was in 2006.<\/p>\n
On April 25, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. issued an executive order to strengthen the state\u2019s
\nability to manage water and habitat effectively in drought conditions and called on all
\nCalifornians to redouble their efforts to conserve water. On January 17, the Governor declared
\na drought state of emergency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sacramento, CA…Today\u2019s final snow survey of the year found more bare ground than snow as California faces another long, hot summer after a near-record dry winter Today\u2019s manual and electronic readings recorded the statewide snowpack\u2019s water content \u2013 which normally provides about a third of the water for California\u2019s farms and cities — at a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/dwrlogo.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}