Rain, rain, come today, river streams too dry these days……
Why must a threatened water crisis be necessary for agencies to get serious about mandatory water conservation? As this article is written, less than two weeks remain in 2013 and Santa Rosa has experienced barely more than 8” of rain for the entire year, compared to the usual average of 32”. (West County averages are generally almost double that amount, yet area trends are comparable as indicated by extremely low reservoir levels.)
According to San Francisco Chronicle article on Nov. 10, 2013, entitled “California on course for driest year on record”, Arthur Hinojosa, chief of hydrology and flood operation for the California Department of Water Resources said that all state reservoirs were well below their carrying capacity. “Generally speaking , it has been dry across the state, and it has been remarkably dry where …. the bulk of the water storage is,” he said and, “…most operators plan on multiyear dry years, but nobody plans on as dry as we’ve seen.”