{"id":2418,"date":"2022-05-09T13:00:35","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T20:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/?p=2418"},"modified":"2022-05-13T15:56:44","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T22:56:44","slug":"its-not-even-summer-and-californias-two-largest-reservoirs-are-at-critically-low-levels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/2022\/05\/09\/its-not-even-summer-and-californias-two-largest-reservoirs-are-at-critically-low-levels\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not even summer, and California\u2019s two largest reservoirs are at \u2018critically low\u2019 levels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Assessment is a wake-up call of a parched and challenging summer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Source of this article, the Los Angeles Times, May 9, 2022<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A houseboat is beached at Shasta Lake in late June 2021, amid a parched summer. The outlook for this summer is also looking grim, with Shasta at a \u201ccritically low\u201d level in early May.
(Brian van der Brug \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p><\/div>\n

At a point in the year when California\u2019s water storage should be at its highest, the state\u2019s two largest reservoirs have already dropped to critically low levels \u2014 a sobering outlook for the hotter and drier months ahead.<\/p>\n

Shasta Lake, which rises more than 1,000 feet above sea level when filled to the brim, is at less than half of where it usually should be in early May \u2014 the driest it has been at this time of year since record-keeping first began in 1976. Lake Oroville, the largest reservoir in the State Water Project, a roughly 700-mile lifeline that pumps and ferries water all the way to Southern California, is currently at 55% of total capacity.<\/p>\n

In the U.S. Drought Monitor\u2019s latest report, officials described both reservoir conditions as \u201ccritically low\u201d going into the summer. Other water officials in recent days have called this \u201cthe worst drought in the history of the State Water Project.\u201d<\/p>\n

This latest reservoir assessment is yet another wake-up call that California \u2014 along with much of the West \u2014 is in for a parched and challenging summer. Millions of residents across Southern California are facing the harshest-ever water restrictions beginning June 1.<\/p>\n

Along the Colorado River, projections show that the nation\u2019s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are reaching a shortage so severe that larger water cuts are likely in 2023 for Arizona, Nevada and Mexico \u2014 and at some point, California.<\/p>\n

Just last week, boaters in Lake Mead stumbled across a barrel containing human remains \u2014 evidence of a killing that had been hidden for decades by higher water levels. Police said more human remains were discovered at the lake on Saturday.<\/p>\n

There is no connection to the first case, investigators said, and no foul play is suspected.<\/p>\n

Authorities expect to uncover more remains as more of the lake bottom becomes exposed.<\/p>\n

So far this year, California has experienced the driest January, February and March ever recorded. The snowpack \u2014 a critical \u201cbank\u201d of water for the state going into the summer \u2014 has already melted much faster than expected because of warmer-than-average temperatures. (Snowmelt typically makes up almost a third of California\u2019s water supply and feeds major reservoirs like Shasta during the driest months of the year.)<\/p>\n

Records continued to shatter on the first day of April, when the annual measurement of water stored in the snowpack turned out to be one of the ten most dire in recorded history.<\/p>\n

Looking now at the numbers for May, California State Climatologist Mike Anderson said that there will be limited opportunities to increase reservoir levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cStatewide reservoir storage has increased at a slower pace than normal so far this year due to the limited storms and associated runoff,\u201d he noted in a hydrology update issued Friday with the forecasting team at the California Department of Water Resources. \u201cStreamflow and groundwater are also both well below average across much of the state. … As May continues, the flows will drop off rapidly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional heat waves, he added, \u201cwill determine how quickly the landscape dries out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Want to see how other area have dramatically cut their water use? Read this article from May 10: “What Israel, Las Vegas and other places can teach SoCal about using a lot less water”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Assessment is a wake-up call of a parched and challenging summer Source of this article, the Los Angeles Times, May 9, 2022 At a point in the year when California\u2019s water storage should be at its highest, the state\u2019s two largest reservoirs have already dropped to critically low levels \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-california","category-drought","category-water-shortage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2418"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2422,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions\/2422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}