California Drought

[ultrarunner]

The rain has been hard at times and the plant life seems to be enjoying it...

Would have kept the front lawn on life support... some of the neighbors did and the results are obvious.

Kind of hard to keep the lawn using 80 gallons a day for home and garden.

On a side note... my brother had a bad day on the farm...

Several years ago he contracted to have the land sounded for water and signed a drill contract for a well... the estimates were 30 to 40 gpm... got a $6,000 dry hole today 230' as the rain keeps coming... his neighbor did the same down 350' about a 1/4 mile away and no water either... there is water in the area and nearby creek is raging and even took out the county road...

I thought he was kidding when he said the driller came up dry today and surprised the driller was even out there as August was scheduled...

Total is out about 10k with permits, soundings, staging and drilling...

 

[dragoneggs]

Yes I love being on a private well. My neighbor and I share. I have all the water I want for cheap... just cost of electricity for pump. That said I don't waste it but it is a peace of mind and I don't mind watering my surroundings all I want. 180ft deep and very clean, clear, great tasting water. A little manganese I think causing a rarely used toilet to develop mineral streaks but nothing a wipe down can't take care of. One of the joys of much of western Washington I suppose. No droughts here

 

[California]

I wrote of a storm going through last night and knocking down trees...

The morning after

And

The latest rains brought the Northern California precipitation to 209 percent of its average for this time of year, according to the state Department of Water Resources. The Sierra Nevada snowpack is 63 percent above average.

 

[houstonscott]

I wrote of a storm going through last night and knocking down trees... The morning after And

That doesn't change fact that the water is owned by agricultural industries and people, and it's not drinking water unless they sell their surplus. Situation has not changed, except AG types will sell their over needed water this year, which means problem will be ignored. HS.

 

[NoTrespassing]

100% of California is out of exceptional drought (worst category) and only about 2% is in extreme drought. So far it's been an amazing recovery.

United States Drought Monitor > Home > State Drought Monitor

 

[bcp]

How much of the rain is replenishing underground water? Are the water tables in dry areas rising?

Bruce

 

[dickfoster]

How much of the rain is replenishing underground water? Are the water tables in dry areas rising?

Bruce

I heard something about ground water levels being up about 10' locally and usually they only get up about 2' over the course of a normal winter. It takes a while to soak and filter down to the low levels of a well but it gets there eventually.

 

[California]

Dunno about the macro data but the micro perspective here is: walking around in the soggy orchard, I keep falling into gopher caverns - roughly a half cubic foot - that collapse when I step on them. Many more than I suspected. I've never seen this before.

And there are little springs running out of the gopher holes that are on downslopes. There must be a lot of drowned gophers out there somewhere.

This morning looks similar to this photo from a couple of years ago.

Summer photo of area where water is now flowing out of the ground.

 

[California]

Finally!

... river flows though the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have been so powerful that the massive pumps that ship north-state water to Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley have roared at full throttle for weeks. The federal and state pumping stations near Tracy delivered more water in January than in any month in the last 12 years

With more rain and snow in the forecast, the pumps could stay at capacity for the next week or two. But pump operators probably will have to dial back because they're starting to run out of space in key reservoirs south of the Delta [halfway to Los Angeles].

Read more here: Delta pumps at full throttle as California ships massive amounts of water north to south | The Sacramento Bee

Lots more details in that article, a couple of vids, and of course comments from all :laughing: perspectives.

 

[beowulf]

An update: We received 3 1/4 inches more rain in past two days, which brings our total for the "rain-calculation-year (from 7-1) to a bit over 30 inches. We have water forcefully spouting out of gopher holes - about 4 inches high - so maybe we won't have a gopher problem this year. More rain is coming but I sure would like a break for a couple of weeks though.