On California’s dismal snowpack, from the Chron: The water content of the Sierra Nevada snowpack is at its lowest level in nearly 20 years — less than 40 percent of usual for this time of year, state water officials say. The size of the snowpack — the source for most of the state’s drinking water …
New Mexico and Colorado are about to enter Rio Grande Compact Article VII restrictions. That means Elephant Butte, the big reservoir down south, is too low, and we’re prohibited from upstream storage. The meat: In flirting with Rio Grande Compact restrictions, New Mexico finds itself in what has become a familiar situation, with the state’s …
Albuquerque Wastewater Treatment Plant Outfall Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. You’re looking at one of the largest tributaries in the Middle Rio Grande – the discharge from Albuquerque’s sewage treatment plant. I don’t know the exact numbers, but we’re putting something in the neighborhood of 60,000 acre feet of water per year into the river. Currently, …
William Connolley stumbles into the minefield that is defining the Australian drought: Australia hasn’t got a mega-drought, only a 10-15% reduction in rainfall. Many commenters complain, mostly offering up the absolutely useless evidence offered by alarmist news stories from the Australian press. Lab Lemming nails it by noting that drought is best defined by societal …
I wish I’d had a camera, but I’ll have to attempt a word picture instead. I was out riding in the foothills with some friends yesterday morning, doing repeats up the road to the Elena Gallegos picnic area. It’s a gentle and persistent climb that winds up an alluvial fan splaying out of the Sandias. …
Kit Stolz has a great look at drought in Southern California, with a particularly nice bit of business from Bill Patzert, the region’s most quotable climatologist: Patzert had a more personal reason to doubt the forecast. In his backyard he has an old oak tree, and for years he has noticed that the tree seemed …
Not really. It takes more than one storm. But I had 0.7 inch in my rain gauge this morning, and check out the snow down in Silver City. Using my new Pagano scale (the daily regression model run by Tom Pagano at the NRCS), the last week’s cool, wet weather has been worth 90,000 acre …
From the Daily Express, across the rapidly rising pond, but adjacent to the smaller and rapidly shrinking pond, apparently: BRITAIN could be plunged into drought misery within months because of the record hot summer that’s on the way. Experts gave the warning yesterday as sailors, left, made the most of a full Bewl Water reservoir, …
Piping Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. This doesn’t much have the look of the dramatic engineering works you typically think of when you think of western water projects, but at the end of the line, you’ve always got to get the water out that last few miles. In this case, it’s new pipe being laid about …
From Robert Clemson’s WaterCrunch, an update on Florida drought: Southwest Florida usually receives 42 inches annually, however, they are missing 13 inches of rain since 2006. The area is now entering a dry season after a year of rainfall so far below normal it ranks as the state’s third-driest year on record. Only four inches …