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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| California drought-free for the first time in 7 years |
| 2019-03-17 |
| [Aljazeera] The state of California has been declared drought-free for the first time in more than seven years. Generous winter rains have filled the state's reservoirs and the Sierra Nevada snowpack is now 50 percent higher than average. This is the first time since mid-December of 2011 that the entire state has been classified as being free of drought, and the moisture deficit is not severe enough to cause social, environmental or economic hardship. The current picture marks a major improvement from just one year ago, when nearly 70 percent of California was still classified as suffering from moderate to severe drought. And only three years before that, the Sierra snowpack had dwindled to virtually zero. Meteorologists say extremes of weather, swinging from drought to deluge, will become increasingly common as the climate continues to change. Although California is now drought-free, many other parts of the United States are not as lucky. Currently, the worst conditions are in New Mexico, where the drought is in its severest category: exceptional. In a drought of this magnitude, widespread crop losses and shortages of water in reservoirs and streams are expected. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #11 In college in the 80s I had a project about California drought. It’s cyclical with years of El Niño flooding and years of La Niña drought (or the reverse). Environmentalists played on the ignorance to score points. State politicians gave away that they didn’t buy the drought but as they never curbed the constant new construction in CA. |
| Posted by: Rjschwarz 2019-03-17 22:10 |
| #10 Cue stories of horrendous mudslides in 5, 4, 3, ... |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2019-03-17 17:25 |
| #9 california's own environmental laws make any State funded construction project time consuming and expensive (one of the problems w their HSRail) |
| Posted by: lord garth 2019-03-17 16:55 |
| #8 I think it's long since gone past treating he dysfunction as merely poorly run, epic graft is the only real option. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2019-03-17 15:03 |
| #7 Only in CA an you find government this obscenely bad. We passed an 8 billion bond measure with 3.8 billion for above ground storage construction three years ago, during the worst of the drought. They announced this past week that construction would e underway in 2024. Nine years after they got the money. They also said they would not be actual dams, rather catchmen basins. They haven’t built an actual damn in 40 years. I’ll be another refugee in Nevada next month! |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2019-03-17 13:31 |
| #6 Ima playing my bs card. I spent some time in the high desert in the early 70's. The snow pack was way better than 8 to 10 feet and the snowplow road markers were 12 feet high or better. Just what are they using as "average "? |
| Posted by: illeagle 2019-03-17 12:39 |
| #5 Isn't that what climate change is all about SPOD? Taxing the CO2 we exhale and cow farts. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2019-03-17 11:40 |
| #4 Yep that’s why we’re always rationing water Just another ploy to tax the populous for a basic need I expect the dems to try to track breathing so they can tax our CO2 output |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2019-03-17 11:37 |
| #3 Fortunately, most of the excess water will flow freely to the sea, rather than being wasted in new reservoirs. /sarcasm |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2019-03-17 09:28 |
| #2 a few years ago Wired had an article declaring California's drought as forever https://www.wired.com/2016/05/thanks-el-nino-californias-drought-probably-forever/ |
| Posted by: lord garth 2019-03-17 07:38 |
| #1 Currently, the worst conditions are in New Mexico, where the drought is in its severest category: exceptional. It's high desert. We're use to it. It comes, it goes. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2019-03-17 07:20 |