Storms battered California this past week.
But this isn’t the first time the Golden State has experienced such extreme rainfall early in the calendar year. Some may see this increase in precipitation as a light at the end of the drought tunnel, but USC Professor of Earth Sciences Lowell Stott says we should stay wary.
Lowell Stott: I want to emphasize to you that we’ve been in situations not unlike those before where we’ve received a lot of precipitation early on in the water year and then the latter part of the water years turned out to be very dry.
A water year, in comparison to the calendar year, starts every October 1st.
Climate change warming is a prominent issue, and California continues to experience the heat of it. The snowpack accumulating over the past winter months is bound to melt fast due to high temperatures during the spring and summer seasons. And unfortunately, much of that precious water will not be available for Californians to use says Professor Stott.
Stott: We can’t accommodate a really rapid runoff melt from these high elevations. We just don’t have any place to put it, basically, if it all, all melts fast.
Southern California gets much of its water supply from the Colorado River, by way of Lake Mead. This conduit is currently in jeopardy. It has been experiencing very low levels of water. In early January, Lake Mead was only about one-quarter full! So low that it’s only a few feet away from becoming an inactive reservoir. The dwindling lake water is one of Southern California’s biggest problems when it comes to having a stable source of water.
USC tries to remind all students: please, be mindful of your water usage. And that will help some, but most of our water consumption in California goes to a surprising use, says USC’s Professor Stott.
Stott: A large fraction of California’s water goes to agriculture and it’s really, really difficult to cut back on agricultural water use. California is a very big agricultural state and uses a lot of water.
Even after the big storms of the last few weeks, the current drought won’t be known until April. So USC and the California Department of Water Resources remind you: please, continue to monitor your water usage and practice water conservation.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Susan Nyirenda.