@speedster1 – don’t go to the salton sea w/o your gas mask. Seriously it’s that bad. Carcasses of dead tilapia liter the entire shore.
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So i shouldn’t think about bringing the family for a beach day of swimming and snorkeling? 
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Actually no. The Salton Sea is a man-made anomaly. It was formed by a breach in a Colorado River irrigation canal in 1905. The flow was so powerful that it took the Corp of Engineers over a year to build a railroad spur down to the breach and cut off the flow. Since then it has been designated as a basin for agricultural drainage.
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Latest CA Drought Monitor Map released this morning. And, we have more rain in the forecast down here (has been raining in N. California). We continue to improve, thankfully:
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And, current CA Reservoir levels also just updated, yesterday. This is even more exciting news for us:
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A lot of reservoirs could have been fuller. But due to earthquake restrictions, agencies are forced to keep them under their capacity.
Yup, a couple of dams in the Santa Clara area, near the Calaveras Fault are questionable. The Anderson Dam is scheduled for earthquake retrofitting, but it’s been delayed. And that is a huge, huge reservoir, with a capacity of 90,000 acre feet when full. More than the other 9 reservoirs in Santa Clara county, combined. That’s too bad the retrofitting wasn’t completed to be able to take advantage of that capacity. But, apparently, the retrofitting is going to be far more extensive than originally thought.
90,000 acre ft is a lot of water. But Pine Flats, 2 miles upstream from where I used to live, is 1,000,000 acre ft. Shasta is 4,552,000 acft. Lake Mead, the largest in the country is 26,000,000. That’s 289 times the size of Anderson. So Anderson is a significant amount of water when full.
If west Texas had 10% of the water CA does we’d have an ego the size of, well Texas…!!
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BTW,
Has all this rain helped to Lake Mead. I remember being there and seeing that bathtub ring that was over 90 METERS thick.
Mike
Improving slowly, Michael:
http://lakemead.water-data.com/
In 1983, it was at full capacity. In January of 2000, Lake Mead was at 92 percent of capacity. On Jan. 1 of this year, Lake Mead had about 36 percent of storage capacity. Based on this report, it has crept up to 40% capacity (and will continue to rise once snow packs start to melt). But, it’s unrealistic to think we can undo 16 to 17 years of drought with one good rain and snow season. So, we’re going to need several years of decent winter precipitation to undo all the drought years. It’s a start, though.
Just talking to my older brother…he’s just outside Vegas…left WI yesterday at 9am… Should be in San Diego tomorrow… I told him to spend some time in Vegas…looks nice tomorrow with temps in upper 60Fs… Looks like clouds in San Diego…early next week looks a little crappy too…then a warm up in the long range.
He’s staying near the ocean by Del Mar…? Then his next leg (in 10 days or whatever he’s staying out there) is driving California to S Florida…the guy is nuts.
Looks like a high pressure ridge parks over the desert southwest and starts to really warm that area the next couple weeks …spread slowly north and east.
The forecast for my area is predicting about 1/2" of rain Mon-Tue … just in time to avoid irrigating!
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There’s a bigger storm coming on February 17th.
I’m not so sure it will make it to my area.
I was trying to hold out as well, keeping my fingers crossed we really get a 1/2". That would be wonderful.
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But the one on the 19th will. That’s a very big storm.
Glad to see California replenishing some of that much needed water in the reservoirs. California was dry to long and knowing what that feels like I can imagine how good this rainy season feels to you right now! Let it rain!
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There’s no indication the moisture will make it this far south. I’d be thrilled if it did.
We’re supposed to get 2 to 3 inches tomorrow, and we often get more than predicted in my neighborhood, close to the water. We are going to have a sump pump installed under the house, but not in time for the next storm. I hope we don’t float away.
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God seldom answers prayers with precision.
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