Tulare
County - A series of storms that deposited less water in the Valley
than expected, did come through with plenty of snowfall, and while no
one is saying the three-year dry spell is over, things are certainly looking
up.
Rainfall for the week in Visalia amounted to less than 2.5 inches, but the series of six storms left more than five feet of new snow at Farewell Gap at the 9,500-foot elevation above Visalia and nearly four feet of snow at Quaking Aspen at 7,200 feet above Porterville.
When the storms began, there was less
than three feet of snow on the ground at both locations, but according
to state Department of Water Resources sensors on Tuesday, there were
7.5 feet at Farewell Gap and 6.5 feet at Quaking Aspen.
Vic Hernandez, river operations supervisor, Kaweah Delta Water Conservation
District, said this year is certainly looking better than the past few
years, but it is still too early to tell if the dry-spell is at an end.
“We're not out of the drought. We really need a big year to rebound,” he said, adding that at Terminus Dam slightly less than 3 inches of rain fell last week – far less than the 8 inches that had been predicted.
Still, so far for the month there has been 3.64 inches of rainfall, nearly an inch above average. “December and January have both been above average,” he said of indications things are looking up.
At Farewell Gap, water content – the really significant measurement – was 21.8 inches as of Tuesday. That is 118 percent of average and already 63 percent of the April 1 average.
Unfortunately, a dry pattern appears
to be returning to the state. Gary Sanger, meteorologist with the National
Weather Service in Hanford, said right now only a week storm is expected
Saturday and nothing on the immediate horizon after that.
Last week's storms did not pose any problems at the lake or at McKay Point
where the district is constructing a diversion structure.
“We handled it just fine,” he said.
Sanger said last week's storms were unusual. “We only see that once a decade,” he said of the line-up of storms.
A key point right now is that water is being released into canals and rivers. Some of that is being used for irrigation, but that flow down canals and channels also helps to recharge the underground water supply on the Valley floor.
Because of the construction project, water can only be diverted down the St. Johns River, but the Tulare Irrigation District is taking a lot of water for its channels. Those releases will continue until Monday or Tuesday when they will start to slowly fill the lake, depending on the weather.
While the storms did bring plenty of rain to the state, meteorologists and state water managers agreed it is too early to say the drought has ended. The rough consensus among water experts last week was that the wet week has been vitally important to improving the state's water outlook. However, they projected that Northern California needs two more weeks like the past week by April for rain and snow levels to return to historic averages.
“We need February and March to be wetter than January to really end the drought,” said Jan Null, a former National Weather Service meteorologist who runs Golden Gate Weather Services in Saratoga.
On Tuesday, the statewide snowpack was at 119 percent of average, up from 79 percent before the storms hit.
On average, six feet of snow have accumulated on the Sierra in the past week. To be at historic average depths on April 1, an additional 13 feet must pile up in the next two months, said Dave Rizzardo, chief of the snow survey and water forecast branch of the California Department of Water Resources in Sacramento. “If you look at the snow and rain, we are now back on pace to where we should be for an average year,” Rizzardo said. “This helps stop the bleeding. But we need a couple more weeks like this one.”
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