California Running out of Water

[Yo_Mama]

42. I think current water systems just did not keep up to the rising population/longer term average.

CA has always been subject to long droughts, and according to some stuff I read years ago, in fact CA has been wetter than the long term average for chunks of recent history.

I looked at CDEC - current supply is about 2/3rds of average:
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/reservoirs/RES

But a system that may have been generally adequate decades ago cannot supply a population that has increased by 10 million.

CDEC (bottom table) also gives Oct-Feb rainfall statewide at a bit above 80% of average, with the past year at 57%:
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/precip/PRECIPSUM

What that means is that the water system as a whole is getting close to capacity. No one can expect over the long run to get 90% of average rainfall year after year. That's not the way the weather works! Nor is the recent average the long-term average.

http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20140215/history-shows-california-subject-to-extreme-droughts
The last 150 years of weather represent some of the most peaceful, reliable periods of rainfall in the region’s history, concluded paleoclimatologists B. Lynn Ingram and Frances Malamud-Roam, in their recent book “The West Without Water.”

Put succinctly, Ingram and Malamud-Roam concluded that we have drastically underestimated the severity of the West’s weather.

Using their own research and cross-referencing with other scientists and scientific disciplines, they say California’s water supply can turn seemingly on a dime, and then stay changed for long stretches of time.