A Hot, Dry Winter in California. Could It Be Drought Again?

I worked in and on the ocean for decades in California. This ridge of pressure has been a feature of the weather for decades. Watching the ridge grow or shrink every year meant watching rain move ashore south of Pt Conception or watching it slide past dropping rain on Central and Northern California while leaving Santa Barbara dry. In the 70s Santa Barbara was a wetter, cooler place. There were other factors there such as larger and more numerous trees in town, and the felling of those trees from building to conflicts over one's ocean views changed the weather but not the pressure systems. That change is much larger feature that's usually further up the coast and it was beyond the influence of the town's small footprint. Trump and his controllers are trying to prevent scientists at NOAA from identifying weather changes and impacts on climate. Now they're stopping funding for the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite. This satellite would provide answers on how phytoplankton and clouds influence climate, cloud formation as well as observing toxic blooms of algae. Republicans want the US to become an armed camp of morons and they're getting their wish. A portion of our population bought into the desire to kill with gusto. The only hope is that Trump and his shameless greed causes a backlash soon enough to kick these miscreants out of power for good!

The media has covered the severe winter in the northeastern US to death this year because it's dramatic. Meanwhile in most of the rest of the world, including in most of the western US, we are experiencing record heat and drought such that the average yearly temperature this year probably will not drop.

How is desalination technology coming along?

Ventura, one of the only communities in Southern California reliant strictly on local water, never saw real recovery from the drought. The main reservoir, Lake Casitas, is currently at 34% capacity, so while the story mentions "plenty of water in California's reservoirs" this is not true everywhere. However, Californians still use 50% of household water outdoors. With a combination of climate appropriate landscaping, rainwater capture, and greywater reuse, we can adapt to this new climate regime.

This should NOT be a concern. If there is a drought president trump will be there with paper towels for all.

Drought again? More like it never left. One year of rainy weather, in the winter of 2016-2017, out of 7 years seems to me just to have one anomaly year during a chronic drought. The few full reservoirs in Northern California are not a solution to the rain shortage, particularly in Southern CA. Snowpack and local rain remain essential. This year the nearly zero snowpack in the Sierra has led to projections of 20% or less allocation of water to Southern California from the massive California Water Project. CWP is sourced from Northern California rivers and reservoirs. Moreover, innumerable localities in California rely totally on local rainfall, since by their location they do not have access to CWP or Colorado river water. Those areas in Southern California will be in full drought this summer.

California must implement a giant desalination effort, powered by solar or nuclear energy, if it is to survive. There are parts of northern California where you find remains of ski lifts, which used to thrive in the 50s and 60s, and are now like ancient artifacts. Meanwhile, thanks to its archaic water allocation laws, California produces vast quantities of rice, competing with wet countries such as Thailand, and supplies almonds to the world, at a cost of over one gallon of water per EACH almond. How much water is that? Easy. CA produces 1.85 billion pounds of almonds each year. Each pound has 368 almonds. At 1.1 gallon per almond, the water required to grow those almonds amount to about 470 billion toilet flushes, enough for each man, woman and child on the planet to flush their toilets once a day during two months. That is a lot of water.

I would like to submit one small revision: extreme drought is not the highest drought category, but rather exceptional drought is. If I remember correctly, nearly half of the state was in the exceptional drought category in 2016.

Maybe the Resnicks can give back the water they've stolen to grow their gold-flaked almonds

It is not only the lack of snow that should be a concern, but the potential for more trees to be put into a stress mode, which makes them vulnerable to bark beetles, and other infestations. With the amount of dead trees, and inability to do controlled burns, we may be looking at another summer of intense fires in the Sierra. This seems to be the new normal, and it is scary.

The default setting for California IS drought. Anything else is an aberration. Likely it will only grow more more like Australia, beset with greater and greater extremes.

Governor Brown declared an end to the drought after one rainy season and that was a huge error. The State of California has yet to determine how much ground water it has or the amount of time required to recharge its aquifers. In other words, Brown and all the water "experts" are truly clueless. California should take lessons from Cape Town, which is about to run out of water, but it won't.

I'd rather that we bring back restricted water use stipulations now rather than waiting for the worst to arrive before taking steps. Let us conserve water now.

Wait until drought conditions become extreme before imposing water restrictions. Real forward thinking. Just like Congress and the budget. Or maybe learn from a biblical story like Joseph and the seven years of plenty, followed by the seven years of famine? Scientific American had an article in 2016 about Israel leading the way in both desalination and more efficient use of water. They went from having a shortage every year, leading to the Sea of Galilee being close to passing the "black line" where the lake would basically become too salty to exist as a fresh water source and would eventually disappear. Now they're running a surplus and building more water desalination plants in conjunction with their neighbor Jordan. And yes, the Palestinians will be getting their fair share of that water. California learned from Israel about large scale agriculture in an arid environment, although the lessons haven't been fully applied yet. California's water usage in agriculture is far less efficient. But it's past time for the state to learn from Israel about water resources. Desalination done properly would be a huge part of the puzzle. Arizona and Nevada would benefit as well.

Wait for March.

What do you mean, again? Last year's wet winter was nothing but a brief reprieve from the new normal: perpetual drought now and then "relieved" by increasingly wild storms that end up doing more harm than good in the long run. (The term "golden state" now refers to the color of our lawns.) Yet the freeways keep getting widened; McMansions, apartment buildings, and condo complexes continue to go up (as to prices, rents, and taxes) along our little fault-line paradise; billions keep getting poured into an allegedly high-speed Little Engine That Won't; and people keep crowding into what used to be California because of the fading remnants of the mystique it acquired in 1849 with the first gold findings. You'd barely recognize Los Angeles today. Its Art-Deco-palm tree-Hollywood-Beach Boys charm has been almost entirely built over by until it more closely resembles (as every major U.S. city does these days) Hong Kong. But people are going to get awfully thirsty soon, and the rising oceans aren't going to help much.

The article does a nice job of describing recent conditions, and separating what is and isn't attributable to climate change. I'd only add that so far, this looks pretty consistent with the projections of "warmer, wetter," conditions for Northern California. It is regrettable that the clever lads who adopt clever monickers to suggest that climatologists are commies heroically opposed by heroes in Lee Child novels can't bring themselves to read honestly and thoughtfully.

The severe drought is not stopping Sonoma County government officials from proposing building 30,000 new homes (adding 100,000+ people) in 5 years. Nevermind that Sonoma County is already one of just 13 jurisdictions that IS actually meeting its Regional Housing Needs Allocation goals. However, the City of Santa Rosa didn't meet the 10% affordable housing goal within EXPENSIVE subdivisions. Developers just pay a fee to get out of building those affordable homes, as they cut into profits and justify building more. So government greed is actually why we don’t have enough affordable housing. Not only is City of Santa Rosa oblivious to the impending water shortage to service all this new housing, but our leaders don’t care about the safety of its residents, as it recently approved new developments on TWICE BURNED property, recently from the costliest wildfire in US history. Where's the water to fight the next wildfire to ravage the same area? This push to increase population is truly shortsighted for a county that depends on water to feed its primary revenue—Wine Country Destination. Day Zero in Cape Town is prophetic for where Sonoma County is heading, as our water issues are going to get far worse. According to National Geographic, “as overdevelopment, population growth, and climate change upset the balance between water use and supply, urban centers from North America to South America and from Australia to Asia increasingly face threats of severe drinking-water shortages.”

What a horrendous predicament for the state of California. When it rains, the rains are hard, heavy, monstrous resulting in deadly flooding. When it doesn't rain, everything becomes so dry and hot, the slightest spark would, does and did set off unprecedented deadly fires. Such a deadly "new norm" for the residents and all living creatures of California. If this isn't a prime example of climate change, I don't know what is. The headline should be amended to read more accurately, "A Hot, Dry Winter in California. Could it be Climate Change After All?"

It's all too familiar... We've cancelled ski trips and have started to collect shower water to flush the toilet. When we moved to the Bay Area 30 years ago, we thought we had left lightening, thunder, and tornados back in the Midwest. Now we experience them more often than ever. Even ten years ago, I remember occasionally pulling out my big winter coat, but now it stays in my closet. There is no doubt that a change is here.

It is always the beginning or end of a drought around here. 40 million people exacerbate the problem a bit.

As expected, "expert" commentators have divined that cyclic weather patterns are 100% sure to be climate change. Don't they see how they damage their case before the 'non-religious' climate change crowd? Their kind of religious belligerence is unattractive, unhelpful and un-scientific.

It could be drought again? What part of climate change don't you get? More droughts? check. Bigger more powerful storms? check. Record storm damage? Check. Soon to come damaged and destroyed crop land, causing mass migrations and of course that will bring puppies and unicorns... I mean the four horsemen... war, famine, death and perhaps even conquest.

Whether or not there is a "ridiculously resilient ridge" blocking storms from coming into California, this article ridiculously plays down the role of climate change in creating drought conditions in California and elsewhere in the southwest. Warmer, drier winters are the new normal and even if La Nino and La Nina play a role in year to year variations the underlying trends toward more drought in the West are due to climate change. Get real, NYTimes. Don't segregate climate change news in one spot - it is affecting everything everywhere.