TOP STORIES
San Francisco Chronicle, 3/8/23. Sudden downpours of rain and hail have become a bit of a nuisance across the Bay Area this week, with every day hosting its share of thunderstorms. Wednesday’s thunderstorm cells will chip away at the dry high-pressure system sitting just off the coast, setting us up for days of heavy rain. The high-pressure system will fall apart by Thursday afternoon. And like water bursting through a failing dam, a torrent of atmospheric moisture will spill into Northern California. This river of atmospheric moisture will then be absorbed by a storm system between Thursday and Friday, expanding in size and intensity as it uses the moisture to fuel its rain, snow, winds and hail.
Los Angeles Times, 3/7/23. Another atmospheric river system has set its sights on California, raising considerable concern about flooding and structural damage as warm rain is expected to fall atop the state’s near-record snowpack this week, forecasters say.
WATER INFRASTRUCTURE
DWR, 3/7/23. Since Dec. 1 Lake Oroville’s storage has increased approximately 178 feet and gained 1.66 million acre-feet of water. While the Department of Water Resources (DWR) continues to monitor lake levels, DWR is also very closely monitoring weather forecasts and mountain snow levels. With ongoing wet weather and in anticipation of increased runoff inflows into the reservoir, DWR will increase outflows through the Hyatt Powerplant on Wednesday. The main spillway at Lake Oroville may also be used as early as Friday for additional water releases.
ABC30 Action News, 3/7/23. Water releases will begin at the end of this week from Friant Dam to make way for more rain on the way. The Bureau of Reclamation plans to release about 2,0000 cubic feet per second of water on Friday from the Friant Dam to the San Joaquin River for flood control.
CLIMATE & WEATHER
CalMatters, 3/8/23/ California has two seemingly contradictory and potentially devastating problems:
- We have more water than we know what to do with — and more is on the way.
- We still don’t have nearly enough.
More atmospheric rivers are due to wash over us this weekend. These are the same kind of state-spanning bands of wet air responsible for dropping 32 trillion gallons of water on the state in January. But in a bit of irony that Alanis Morissette might appreciate, the coming rain could actually complicate things in drought-plagued California by melting its snowpack too early.
San Francisco Chronicle, 3/8/23. The warm Pacific storm headed toward California this week is expected to unleash heavy rain and melted snow, and with that, more of the flooding that has made this winter one of the most harrowing on record.
Oroville Mercury-Register, 3/7/23. The consistent stream of stormy weather seems to have made an impact on some aspects of the California drought this year. The California Department of Water Resources has reported strong snowpack measurements as well as some rising reservoir levels over the past two months along with a 35% allocation of water to the 29 public agencies that distribute the water. In December, DWR preliminarily planned for merely a 5% allocation.
WATER SUPPLY & QUALITY
National Geographic, 3/8/23. Millions of people in the U.S. rely on the melting of snow for drinking water, agriculture, and more. But even amid near-record snows in California, snowpack levels are steadily declining.
Ag Alert, 3/8/23. As still more storms dumped new snow onto California’s burgeoning snowpack, water managers, farmers and environmentalists gathered in Sacramento last week to discuss long-term challenges to secure a more certain water future.
San Joaquin Valley Sun, 3/7/23. In light of last week’s decisions regarding the groundwater sustainability plans, groundwater managers in Fresno County are celebrating.
CALIFORNIA WATERSHEDS
Riverbank News, 3/7/23. At the annual Salmon Information Meeting hosted virtually earlier this month, state and federal fishery scientists presented the numbers of spawning salmon that returned to California’s rivers late in 2022 and announced the abundance forecasts for key California stocks.
CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES
U.S. Politics Today, 3/8/23. Wild Horse Fire Brigade (WHFB) is a California-based all-volunteer 501-c-3 nonprofit public-benefit corporation that has developed a novel “nature based” solution that will help prevent catastrophic wildfire and at the same time help save and protect America’s wild horses. This innovative plan also reduces climate altering wildfire smoke by natural carbon cycling and sequestering carbon compounds into soils and plants.
AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE
SF Gate, 3/7/23. Though recent snow and rainfall have certainly improved drought conditions, California water officials still want to make every drop of water count.
The Register, 3/6/23. The US government is requiring states to assess the cyber security capabilities of their drinking water systems, part of the White House's broader efforts to protect the nation's critical infrastructure from attacks by nation-states and other cyber threats.
EVENTS
Reclamation will hold a quarterly meeting to provide an update on the development of the Biological Assessment for the 2021 Reinitiation of Consultation on the Long-Term Operation of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project, pursuant to the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act. The meeting will be held virtually on Microsoft Teams.
When: March 14, 2023 | 1:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Where: Teams Meeting
When: March 15, 2023 | 9:30 a.m.
Where: Warren-Alquist State Energy Building, 1516 9th Street, Rosenfeld Hearing Room, Sacramento, CA, 95814
The California Water Plan describes and updates a broad set of resource management strategies (RMSs) that help local agencies and governments manage their water and related resources. Every RMS can be a technique, program, or policy that can be used to meet water-related management needs of a region and the state as a whole.
During this workshop, the Water Plan Team will gather comments on the draft Flood Resource Management RMS. This will be an online only workshop, please register to receive the link.
When: March 15, 2023 | 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
DWR will provide financial and direct technical assistance to counties for developing their County Drought Resilience Plan to provide needed water shortage protection and emergency response for state small water systems and domestic wells per SB 552. This webinar will mark the launch and availability of these assistance opportunities.
When: March 16, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
The California Water Plan will hold a virtual public workshop over Zoom on March 29, 2023, from 1 - 4 p.m. The Water Plan Team will provide an in-depth overview of draft chapter content for Update 2023. The workshop will serve as a venue interested parties to provide input on the draft content and recommendations.
When: March 29, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
This online short course will review the fundamental principles of groundwater and watershed hydrology, water budgets, water quality, and water law and regulation in an intuitive, highly accessible fashion. Through real world examples, participants learn about the most common tools for measuring, monitoring, and assessing groundwater and surface water resources. We then review the key steps and elements of planning for groundwater sustainability and implementing projects and management actions.
This tour ventures through California’s Central Valley, known as the nation’s breadbasket thanks to an imported supply of surface water and local groundwater. The southern part of the vast region, the San Joaquin Valley, is the focus of this tour as it faces challenges after years of drought, dwindling water supplies, decreasing water quality and farmland conversion for urban growth.
This tour explores the heart of California water policy – the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay – to learn about the critical role the Delta plays in the state, Delta planning initiatives, water project operations, fish passage, ecosystem restoration, levees and flood management, Delta agriculture and water supply reliability.
Groundwater Resources Association of California - The popular Annual GSA Summit is getting revamped in collaboration with the ACWA Groundwater Committee and SGMA Implementation Subcommittee. This is a once-a-year get-together to foster progress on SGMA implementation, collaborating with ACWA members and implementers and GRA technical experts.
When: June 7 - 8, 2023
Where: Kimpton Sawyer Hotel in Sacramento
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