Tuesday, June 9, 2015

One of California's biggest water supplies disappears

Quick update on CA's growing water shortage.  There is good news around their dwindling water supply.  Restrictions on water use (long over due as we've been wasting oceans of water for years), natural water collection at homes and businesses, sharing of water recapture and processing with help from Israel, all have come alive in CA as they struggle with the drought.

We'll see, as they go forward, if they can keep their farms growing so many of our fruits and vegetables, their cities viable as they try to process enough water to sustain millions of people and their economy as it treads the environmental changes and test their resilient abilities. 

One of California's biggest sources of water just disappeared


The worst drought in recorded history just got worse.

California's main source of surface water during the state's dry summer months is the remaining snow on its highest mountains. But it has officially melted. The snowpack levels, which hovered at around 7-15% of normal for this date in 2009, before the 4-year-drought began, are currently at 0%.

What does that look like?

Here's a map of the California snowpack on May 29, 2009:



.
california drought snowpack 2009

And here's a map of the California snowpack on May 29, 2015:


california drought snowpack 2015

There is still some snow left from stations that haven't yet reported and in the state's already-low reservoirs, as Eric Holthaus notes over at Slate, but still, this doesn't look good. 

"This is essentially a worst-case scenario when it comes to California’s fragile water supply," writes Holthaus.

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