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Department of Water Resources - California Data Exchange Center (Original Post) PufPuf23 Feb 2019 OP
Thanks for posting. Didn't know this existed. alwaysinasnit Feb 2019 #1
90% ROB-ROX Feb 2019 #2
Snowpack is also important and above average for this time of year PufPuf23 Feb 2019 #3
I have been looking at the rain totals and percentages BigmanPigman Feb 2019 #4
Good points. Locally where I am now located both precipitation PufPuf23 Feb 2019 #5
The rain we get in the rest of the state BigmanPigman Feb 2019 #6

ROB-ROX

(767 posts)
2. 90%
Thu Feb 14, 2019, 07:19 PM
Feb 2019

The survey indicates this year 90% normal. I hope the missing 10% is found in the future surveys. I did notice that the rain result is at 125% of normal. Maybe this year there will not be a dry year.....

BigmanPigman

(51,432 posts)
4. I have been looking at the rain totals and percentages
Thu Feb 14, 2019, 11:18 PM
Feb 2019

as well as the location of the moisture. The snow packs are key! Also, they are moving the "rainy season"from beginning of Oct to Jan 1st so you have to consider that factor when looking at charts.


PufPuf23

(8,689 posts)
5. Good points. Locally where I am now located both precipitation
Fri Feb 15, 2019, 01:01 AM
Feb 2019

and snowpack are still lower than average despite more rain this year.

I never caught that about moving the precipitation year.

My location is the lower Klamath River in extreme northeaster Humboldt county, very near where Del Norte, Humboldt, and Siskiyou counties meet at a common point. There is no snow survey here yet the mountains peaks are mostly in the 6000 feet elevation. I tend to watch the river flow data in the winter and the River itself in real time. I took a drive today to check out the Klamath and Salmon Rivers and expected higher flows because of the recent snow followed by rain and reports of flooding elsewhere (as in the Eel at Fernbridge in southern Humboldt). But the Rivers will get higher in flow before they drop but here far from flood stage albeit roiling and muddy. Lots of landslides on the roads.

The rain comes off the Pacific and gets intense at the first mountain ridges, the blue area in the top map is Gasquet Mountain in the Smith River drainage that historically has the most precipitation in CA. Where I am the precipitation is still only somewhat over 70% of historic average and the snowpack is low and the back country roads were blocked by snowpack 1000 feet lower than a typical year until the recent storms (where it snowed and stuck for several days at my home that is only 500 foot elevation).

About 45 years ago I did a water balance for the Eel River during the 1964 flood event for a hydrology class at Cal takin into account vegetation cover, soils, and timing and form of precipitation. The calculated flow by the month was compared to river gauges granted the river gauges were marks from the extreme flood event. My Dad and I were stranded in December 1964 for several days on 101 near Leggett and my parents did not get to our Klamath River home for several weeks and road access was not restored until late Spring.

BigmanPigman

(51,432 posts)
6. The rain we get in the rest of the state
Fri Feb 15, 2019, 03:34 AM
Feb 2019

isn't as important as the snowpack. Remember a few years ago when Gov Brown went up to the mountains and measured the snowpack? One year there wasn't even enough snow on the ground to measure while the following year there was about 11' when he measured it. Climate change is all about extremes. We better start building tons of desalination plants and they are VERY expensive. That is how the UAE gets all of their water in a desert. They even have an indoor ski slope in a mall (in Dubai I think).

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