Even as winter arrived in the East this week, with treacherous snow and an impending Arctic cold snap, much of the West and its major river basins are still entrenched in warm and dry conditions. It\u2019s a sluggish and concerning start to what should be the region\u2019s wet season and is raising concerns about the future of the water supplies that depend on it. <\/p>\n
Although meteorologists and Western water experts caution it\u2019s\u00a0still early in the winter and a lot can change between now and April, the warm, dry weather is notable for how far-reaching it has been. <\/p>\n
This year\u2019s weather and precipitation pattern so far stands in stark contrast to last winter \u2013 a blockbuster year for snow that filled reservoirs across the West. If 2023 was a \u201cgamechanger\u201d for\u00a0the West\u2019s water supplies, 2024 could be shaping up to be an anxiety-inducing pivot back to drought. <\/p>\n
Several atmospheric rivers last winter dumped snow across the West by the start of January. But that stormy pattern hasn\u2019t\u00a0shown up yet this year, said Paul Miller, a hydrologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center. <\/p>\n
Snowpack conditions as of early January were 40% to 70% below normal in the upper Colorado River basin, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday, and there\u2019s \u201clittle to no snow\u201d in the lower basin. <\/p>\n
But they also noted January temperatures are dipping, and more precipitation is starting to fall in the region, and a midweek storm slammed the Northwest and Northern California with heavy snow and rain. Still, NOAA experts noted Wednesday that these storms were \u201cunlikely to completely erase existing deficits.\u201d <\/p>\n
There was some hope this year that El Nino \u2013 a Pacific Ocean phenomenon that influences weather around the world \u2013 would bring more storms to the West. But NOAA scientists cautioned on Monday that its impact is not as far-reaching; it could bring wetter conditions to the Southwest but drier-than-normal weather to southern Wyoming and northern Colorado. And Northern California is unlikely to be impacted by a typical El Nino, NOAA scientists said. <\/p>\n
The region is no stranger to variability of a record wet winter followed by several drier ones, Miller said. But human-caused climate change is making drought longer and more persistent, making each wet year more important,\u00a0he added. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to pinpoint single years or events to climate change,\u201d Miller said. \u201cBut this current pattern we\u2019re in over the last 20 to 30 years is very symptomatic of climate change impacts.\u201d <\/p>\n
In California, the first survey of the year revealed a miniscule snowpack, with about 7.5 inches of snow equivalent to about 3 inches of melted water. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a \u201cpretty modest\u201d showing, said Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, especially considering last year at this time California was measuring 55.5 inches of snow. <\/p>\n
The good news for California, however, is its reservoirs are full for the first time in years \u2013 meaning there is ample water to help get through the year. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur reservoirs are in much better condition because last year was so incredibly wet,\u201d Nemeth said. <\/p>\n
If\u00a0the state does get a big storm, she said, some dams are already so full they may activate their flood spillways much earlier in the year than is typical. The state would also try to direct extra water that can\u2019t fit in the reservoir into groundwater recharge ponds \u2013 attempting to raise depleted groundwater levels, Nemeth said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good news for water supply that our reservoir conditions are orders of magnitude much healthier than they were a year ago,\u201d Nemeth said. <\/p>\n
Even though California\u2019s dams are full, the nation\u2019s largest reservoirs still have a long way to go. Water levels in lakes Mead and Powell \u2013 fed by the Colorado River \u2013 are far below average. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven though conditions definitely improved there, they\u2019re such massive reservoirs that they\u2019re\u00a0at critically low levels,\u201d Miller said. <\/p>\n
While last winter bolstered water supplies across the West after several perilously dry years, several experts said it\u2019s unlikely a historic water year of that magnitude will happen twice in a row. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou tend to get wet years followed by several dry years,\u201d Hasencamp said. \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t expect every year to be dry, but we should expect more dry years than wet years.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Even as winter arrived in the East this week, with treacherous snow and an impending Arctic cold snap, much of the West and its major river basins are still entrenched in warm and dry conditions. It\u2019s a sluggish and concerning start to what should be the region\u2019s wet season and is raising concerns about the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}