patrick.net

It may have rained a lot at your house recently, but the Western US is parched. Reservoirs are at record lows, and the State water project has announced that Los Angeles is getting an allocation of ZERO water next year barring extreme rain and snowpack this winter. The lack of adequate surface water for human needs is draining aquifers at an increasing rate, resulting in ground subsidence and permanent reduction in the geologic structures' ability to get replenished and ever store as much water again. There were 1 or 2 "atmospheric river" events recently that affected the Northwest, but overall this is predicted to be a La Nina year meaning lower seasonal rainfall than average. Last year was dry AF, all the native trees on my mountain property on the Southern tip of the Central Valley looked sickly and distressed since mid-summer, and some have obviously died back or altogether. These are OLD oak trees.

I agree more reservoir capacity would be a good idea. You might be disappointed to hear how far a cubic mile of stored water will actually go toward serving the demands of 39 million Californians.

We had a lot of rain in summer (even W Texas deserts were green - I had not seen anything like that before!), but now it is back to normal and way too warm for this time of year.

Automan Empire says

It may have rained a lot at your house recently, but the Western US is parched. Reservoirs are at record lows, and the State water project has announced that Los Angeles is getting an allocation of ZERO water next year barring extreme rain and snowpack this winter. The lack of adequate surface water for human needs is draining aquifers at an increasing rate, resulting in ground subsidence and permanent reduction in the geologic structures' ability to get replenished and ever store as much water again. There were 1 or 2 "atmospheric river" events recently that affected the Northwest, but overall this is predicted to be a La Nina year meaning lower seasonal rainfall than average. Last year was dry AF, all the native trees on my mountain property on the Southern tip of the Central Valley looked sickly and distressed since mid-summer, and some have obviously died back or altogether. These are OLD oak trees.

I agree more reservoir capacity would be a good idea. You might be dis...

That's not true they are not at record lows, they have recovered a lot. What is true that they don't do a good enough job at making sure all that rainfall can be stored when weather happens. Still there is no drought anymore at all, not even in the West. Here in the North Bay Area it has rained a lot as well, this is going to be one of the wettest winters. But Manbearpig!

mell says

That's not true they are not at record lows, they have recovered a lot. What is true that they don't do a good enough job at making sure all that rainfall can be stored when weather happens. Still there is no drought anymore at all, not even in the West.

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/RescondMain?source=patrick.net

Here is an interactive map showing today's current reservoir levels. 9 of 12 stand far below the date's historic average level. The 3 that are at or slightly above historic average today are all in the Southern half of the state, not a result of the extreme ~2 days of rain events in the Northwest. Despite all the runoff water these extreme events dropped over the entire watershed of the dams in question getting impounded by the dams, with nothing that could be built or diverted differently, the reservoir levels remain at a critically low level.

Given this, what basis do you have for the claim "They are not at record lows, they have recovered a lot."? I also don't believe you gave a femtosecond of thought about the state's groundwater levels, or the question of how long each cubic mile of new water impoundment and storage capacity would supply California's 39 million residents.

From Global warming to Global Flood… don’t give them more ideas.

Those lakes have all been drained in the last year period! That stunt with the family that found the boat on a section of lake that hasn't been seen in 40 years that make national news. Was all staged propaganda to gaslight people into the hype that the Global warming is dooming us all .We're not getting coastal towns wiped out ,but we are getting record rainfall worldwide for about 6 to 8 months straight. They knew there would be a shitload of rain so they lowered the lakes. Then a few days later when all of the townfolks noticed. They were all like Boy oh Boy, the Lake is really low. It was 20 feet higher this time last year! Well where and when did that 20 feet of water go?

California is getting rain, and dump it in the ocean, they refuse to keep it around, and destroy their favorite Global Hoax.

What gets me about all of these lakes, nobody was sounding the alarm before they got as low as they are now. If it were a gradual thing, people would have been documenting these receding shorelines for the last few years, which they didn't. Until all at once, now they are all low at the same time, and everyone is surprised at the same time. And it's not just our lakes they are doing it all over the world. Weather is local for sure, but why in the hell would every region in the world have drought conditions so sever that their lakes all dried up in the same year?

Just look at the lakes that have damns, and provide power that they didn't drain, they are having spillway breaks and breaches.

Tenpoundbass says

Since late Spring, the NOAH sat page has shown a very wet globe.

Was just playing with some of NOAA's many interactive maps. There's a "wet" band across 2021 upper North America, Europe, and trending South toward China not Siberia going East. Much of the rest of the globe shows below average precipitation.

I also just looked at the 30 day figures for North America. Record high rainfall in the Puget Sound and Great Lakes areas, and tiny parts of coastal Southeast Florida and the tip of the Texas panhandle. Literally most of the country West of the Mississippi recorded 5-50% of normal rainfall during this period.

I keep noticing on Matts off road recovery, people getting stuck in a so called dried up lake.
People are shocked just last year the shore was mile further up. The way people are getting stuck it would seem that the lake level was at least there as under the dried crust, the soil is soggy and saturated. The lake shore is hundred yards further away. Normal water usage would not have shrunk that quickly, that the soil under the dried up shoreline would still be soggy mud. It would have taken months if not a year/s of drought to go as far as I'm seeing lakes out West drying up. The shore a hundred yards away should have had ample time to dry and get hard. Especially in the hot Utah desert sun. This isn't some cold dank place, that allows soil to stay moist just inches under the top.

Not just in Utah but I see a lot of hiker and trekkers on Youtube visiting these so called shrinking lakes due to drought. They all look like they are being drained. That's not drought.

Automan Empire says

I also just looked at the 30 day figures for North America. Record high rainfall

Where are you seeing record high stats? The numbers I'm seeing on the internet are all over the place, and are undated and don't have any geo location tagged to them. Useless data is not dependable data

The reservoir capacity in CA was built for much smaller population. When was the last time we had big reservoir built - 1968? There were less than 20 mil people living in the state then. Now it's well over 40. As a result we don't have the luxury of multi-year averaging anymore: whatever is accumulated during wet years does not get stretched far into dry ones.

Tenpoundbass says

Automan Empire says

I also just looked at the 30 day figures for North America. Record high rainfall

Where are you seeing record high stats? The numbers I'm seeing on the internet are all over the place, and are undated and don't have any geo location tagged to them. Useless data is not dependable data

This is directly from NOAA's website. Zoom in to the region you want. Select 30 day precipitation, percent of normal. https://water.weather.gov/precip/?source=patrick.net

Eric Holder says

The reservoir capacity in CA was built for much smaller population. When was the last time we had big reservoir built - 1968?

Not true, a HUGE one was completed in the last 10 years in San Bernardino county. I'm all for building more, in addition to expanding already significant groundwater replenishment projects. I keep asking people who think we can new-reservoir our way out of the problem over the next 100 years of unchecked population growth: How long does each (arbitrarily chosen metric for scale) cubic mile of new storage capacity supply the state's current 39 million residents?

Tenpoundbass says

Not just in Utah but I see a lot of hiker and trekkers on Youtube visiting these so called shrinking lakes due to drought. They all look like they are being drained. That's not drought.

Just like that scene in Chinatown, when they drain the reservoirs in the middle of the night to generate FUD.

Automan Empire says

Eric Holder says

The reservoir capacity in CA was built for much smaller population. When was the last time we had big reservoir built - 1968?

Not true, a HUGE one was completed in the last 10 years in San Bernardino county.

What's the name of it? I was under impression Lake Orowille was the last one built.