Wet Winter Makes Dent in California Drought Report

Good news for our climate in crisis. The latest series of storms means good news for our drought concerns. Meteorologist V&A Rana has the latest update on the drought monitor V&A. After a record dry start to 2022, the active weather pattern of 2023 has proven beneficial to the drought monitor. All of that rain and Sierra snow. Let's take a closer look at the comparison of where we started at the beginning of the water year in September of 2022. 88% of the California was still under the extreme category with 46% in the exceptional category that is the worst of the categories.

Now today we have removed the red zones in the state of California and a lot of these places are now drought free. We have surpassed our seasonal rainfall. Now just two weeks ago almost all of California was under some form of drought as of this morning parts of California's coast and even in through the valleys are still got more rain on the way in a healthy Sierra snowpack. 192% of statewide average. This also doesn't count the last storm that we saw. This gets released every Thursday, so hopefully only more good news to come. Thanks V&A.

So what does this mean for our water reservoir water reserves and how our water agencies are reacting? Also, how would affect us long term? We sent NBC Bay Area's Ian Cole to find those answers. You can see it in the swollen reservoirs and have likely felt it with all the storms. The drought situation is improving. Now a new report confirms it as of today, half of California is now out of the drought status. I spoke with the author of this week's federal drought monitor map. He says the two factors helping reservoirs are filling up and the snowpack is growing, but we still need more groundwater. Over the last couple three years, wells were going dry by the hundreds throughout the state.

You need that groundwater restored so we're in a good shape when it comes to reservoirs and mountain snowpack. Groundwater is still a bit of a problem. Streams are also running high and the soil moisture has been restored. That means for now the Bay Area is mostly out of the drought and into the abnormally dry status, but I asked him about what that will mean long term. The mega drought over well asked me that in five years. We might have a better idea then. Is the current three year drought over four those parts of the state that are now abnormally dry or D nothing, but yes, how long was that last? Ask me that in the year.

Valley Water in the South Bay says today's update is great news. The board will wait until the end of the water year April 1st and until the April snowpack survey is completed to decide whether to make changes to its water restrictions and that's kind of the last puzzle piece for our water supply portfolio heading into dry season and so they'll take a look at you know our current supplies and then they'll evaluate you know what kind of water restrictions will be lifted from this drought and what may stay in place. Center's a state environmental studies chair Professor Catherine Cushing says locally there are three things we need to watch moving forward. The first is precipitation. Are we going to get some more storms? The second is temperature. Is it going to stay kind of cold enough that the Sierra Nevada snowpack is not going to melt? So some of these gains that we've seen are not literally going to be, you know, evaporated away and the third is time she and others fear a brewing atmospheric river aimed at the Sierra might melt the snowpack faster than anticipated. So while today is cause for celebration, we will have to wait and see how big that celebration should be.

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