Powerful snow and rain storms are filling reservoirs “and all but ending the five-year drought across much of northern California,” says the San Jose Mercury News. It quoted Jay Lund, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC-Davis, as saying, “California is a dry state and probably always will be in most years but we certainly don’t have a statewide drought right now.”
Since Oct. 1, more precipitation has fallen in key watersheds of northern California, from Lake Tahoe to Mount Shasta, than in the same period since 1922, said the Mercury News. If the snow and rain ended now, there is so much water in storage there wouldn’t be water shortages for several years. Some 350 billion gallons of waters surged into reservoirs from storms this month.
Southern California remained short of rain and suffering from low levels in reservoirs, said Lund.
The Fresno Bee said the runoff from storms allowed some irrigation districts in the central San Joaquin Valley to deposit water into recharge basins. “Depletion of the region’s groundwater has been a major outcome of the state’s five-year drought. Without a regular supply of surface water, farmers turned to pumping groundwater, causing the levels to plummet in some area,” said the Bee. “Water districts hope to put some of that water back.”