California’s drought has become the state’s driest three-year period on record, surpassing that of 2013-15 — and a fourth dry year is looking increasingly likely, officials said Monday.
“This is our new climate reality, and we must adapt,” Department of Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth said in a statement. “As California transitions to a hotter, drier future, our extreme swings from wet and dry conditions will continue. We are preparing now for continued extreme drought and working with our federal, state, local and academic partners to plan for a future where we see less overall precipitation and more rain than snow.”
Anderson said the current three-year period is the driest since records began in 1896. What’s more, a stubborn La Niña climate pattern in the tropical Pacific is expected to stick around for a rare third year this fall and winter, he said. La Niña can tip the scales toward dryness, especially in Southern California, but that’s not a guarantee, and much depends on where the system’s high pressure manifests.
“There’s a whole lot of uncertainty right now,” Anderson said.
Jeanine Jones, drought manager at the Department of Water Resources, said many agricultural users also experienced significant cuts this year. The state cut allocations from Feather River water rights settlement contractors by 50%, and the Central Valley Project allocated no water to many of its agricultural contractors. Significant reductions in rice acreage this year could have unintended consequences for birds that rely on flooded rice fields during their fall migration, she said.
Jones said the challenges don’t stop at state lines. The Colorado River — a major supplier of water for California and surrounding states — is nearing historic lows, and federal officials are putting pressure on the states to significantly reduce their reliance on the river or face painful cuts.
“Realistically, our current drought in the Colorado River basin began in 2000, and this is not something that, on a watershed of this scale, will be recovered from quickly — certainly not just a single wet year, if we were to have that,” she told reporters.
https://news.yahoo.com/california-suffering-driest-three-years-214328187.html