Did California’s recent storms mitigate drought conditions? Coachella Valley experts weigh in
The California Department of Water Resources gave an update Monday on the impacts that January storms have had on flooding, snowpack, and water supply levels at the state's largest reservoirs, so far this year.
Recent storms have brought a record amount of rain to some cities across the Golden State, prompting questions about whether lingering drought conditions have seen any improvement as a result.
Some positive updates were shared by multiple experts at the state level during Monday's online media briefing.
“Because of a very healthy snowpack and really sustained wet weather for these three weeks, we’ve seen a lot of areas kind of pivot from a drought response of trying to recover storage into changing to doing some flood releases as they manage reservoirs that are fortunate to recover the storage loss during the past three years of drought," according to Dr. Michael Anderson, State Climatologist with the Department of Water Resources.
However, he noted that Californians are not out of the woods just yet when it comes the drought.
"We still have a few, the bigger ones up north – Shasta and Trinity being the most notable ones that still have a long way to go before they get back to average operating conditions, much less, their top of conservation storage,” said Dr. Anderson.
Both the Coachella Valley Water District and Desert Water Agency have maintained water conservation protocols, even though nearly all of the water that is used in the Coachella Valley comes from an underground aquifer that is replenished by three different sites.
We are checking in with our local water officials to get an update on how recent storms have impacted local water supplies in the Coachella Valley.
