The US drought monitor site they linked doesn’t seem to agree with their assertion that 99.3% of the state is abnormally dry or in drought.

It's all good, there's still lots left to sell to Nestlé so you have that

The drought monitor is taking into account the lack of retained moisture in the soil. It takes years of good conditions to replenish the soil moisture. I think the estimate is 6 straight years of 150% precipitation to return to full normal.

Silly question. Wiith all these Wells, driven into the aquifer, Why don't they in times of flood, pump the flood water down into the aquaifer?

Flood water is contaminated.

Aquifers aren't necessarily big underground lakes in a cavern. The water is often spread throughout the substrate kind of like a sponge. When you take the water out, it doesn't just leave empty space, the ground around it fills the void. To reopen and fill those voids would require pressure -which is costly.

There are things called recharge dams which sort of do this though. Problem here again though is cost. Usually other methods are cheaper which is why we don't see that kind of thing very much.

I don't doubt what you're saying, but why say 99.7% and link to a source that says 55.34%?

Maybe we could have spent those billions of dollars on that high speed rail project on something like this. We spend money on stupid shit here.

Even if you were to recharge an aquifer this way you still run into the treatment issue. The majority of groundwater sources are not treated and if you pump surface water into them they’re now contaminated

It is because the article uses data up to mid-January as noted at the bottom "The drought data shows data up to the week of Jan. 17, 2023. Precipitation data is recent as of January, 2023" despite the article being published this month (without the most recent 2 months of data).

I'm sorry but this article is categorically false; there is no way ninety-nine percent of California is in drought conditions after the rain we have continued to have. Glad they got their check for their article but the sensationalism of it is bullshit, showing me pretty graphs doesn't support your argument when we've now had sustained months of rainfall, snowpack, and reservoirs coming back to healthy levels.

"Why you still have gingivitis despite brushing that one time"

I believe it comes down to retention of water rather than amount of rainfall or snow pack.

If you have an empty glass and fill it with ten times the amount of water it can fit, which then spills over onto the floor - you don’t have ten glasses of water, you still have one glass of water and the rest is on the floor (or in the ocean). There are currently only about five reservoirs with additional recharge capability and two to three more under way - meaning despite the amount of rain a significant amount is lost and when summer arrives the water retained will be used up as it typically would.

I think you also have to considered how the water cycle works as well as the soils in California, in which a number of areas most likely just see the water run off into waterways to the ocean, used by farms and high water sources like golf courses.

exactly. Why is California in a drought after they’ve sucked the ground completely dry of natural resources for tens of years. California’s natural resources can’t support the number of people they’re trying to house.

Those are some confusing charts.

For anyone in CA questioning this…

The article is from early March, they’re pulling from mid-January data which was only after the new years storms - which didn’t do a whole lot to alleviate the drought on their own - and officials were consistent in saying one big (series) of storms wouldn’t get CA out of the drought.

However CA has been drenched since and the latest drought monitor map (released today) shows only 36.4% of the state is in any kind of drought. None of the state is in extreme or exceptional drought anymore. And that data doesn’t include (most of) this week’s storms.

https://www.drought.gov/states/california#web-resources-state

Putting surface water into an aquifer would be a natural disaster and would actualy contaminate the ground water.

Aquaifer water is naturally purified as water moves down through the ground. You can drink it without treatment. (most of the time).

Now, if we used large, underground caverns to store flood water for future treatment, that would be something. But flood water is full of bacteria, and unfortunately a lot of man made shit like plastic, heavy metals and chemics which can't be easily filter or separated by conventional water treatment.

The problem is that people have been pumping too much groundwater and that takes a long time to replenish. In some places the wells have already run dry. Precipitation alone cannot solve that problem.

does it have anything to do with nestle raping the public water reserves for profit?

I get that; but ninety-nine percent is news sensationalism. Coastal and inland regions have been saturated for three months and a heightened snowpack means replenishment in ground water through spring. Some areas in the valley may still be in drought conditions but to say that ninety-nine percent (even from January's figures) is a lie.

I mean sure, the idea that it’s ninety nine percent on the dot seems a bit suspicious - it’s prob just a number being used to sound like ‘a lot’.

The last article I read on this topic about a month ago soar california has something like 60% of its expected water use met for this year.. which I’m guessing is what they’re trying to express, that despite all the rain it’s still not adequate for the states water use needs.

All I've said is ninety-percent is bullshit, and to say that they meant by ninety-nine percent is "a lot" is hilarious. Ninety-nine percent is the whole pie, subtracting a meager one percent is insignificant by anyone's standards.

Let's build a megalopolis in a desert! What could possibly go wrong?

A lot has happened since this was published on March 2. Basically, it is out of date.

Yes, I also commented that this information is out of date. A lot has happened since this data was developed.

There was absolutely no reason for the article authors to use data lagged by over a month and a half. Pretty much every CA drought map site and water tracking site updates daily.

Mansplain much?

The irony of someone posting really stale and incorrect data in the "data is beautiful" sub... ONLY ACCURATE DATA IS BEAUTIFUL

One good year does not eliminate a long term drought. Did anyone learn anything in junior high and high school?

That makes it even worse.

>Snow blanketed California the last weekend of February, only weeks after it was pummeled by torrential rains. But these historic storms barely made a dent in a daily reality for most Californians — a years-long, expansive drought. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 99.39% of the state is still abnormally dry or in drought...

Despite the rains and snow in February, the state was still mostly in a state of drought in January?!?

Snow pack is looking good

Yeah I’m not certain why they’d say ninety nine percent - What I meant is that perhaps they’re just using it as an expression rather than scientific data.

The most recent I’ve seen show that something like seventy three percent is still in drought - these are most likely areas with poor perk rates and infiltration/water management.

I don’t know what the hell youre talking about - I work in landscape architecture so I was trying to explain things based on knowledge I’ve accrued - was I writing to a woman or do I sound condescending in that manner? Bc that wasn’t my intent and I find your comment to be pretty random, it was simply a metaphor.

I thought the point of Reddit was sort of to share knowledge and have conversations, I particularly love when people share expertise. I’m not certain why what I wrote is mansplaining

Why’d you comment this on my comment when everyone above is literally typing out how aquifers work and how water tables function. Why’d you decide to comment that on mine.. I thought the water glass comment was a good metaphor for why an area can still be in drought despite getting a lot of rain.

Lmao saying that with your username

California has a water storage problem. Start building reservoirs and quit playing the victim.

[removed]

Yep lol. The heaviest of the rains and snow fell on Feb and it’s been raining every single week since January, including this weekend which saw several more inches of rain and snow.

How dare you question the narrative

Yes came into say the same thing. The ONLY reason why we’re potentially still in a drought at this point is because we simply do not have enough infrastructure to capture all the rain/runoff. We are simply wasting opportunity at this point

I think he's trying to point out how stupid it is to make a claim today that the state is still abnormally dry, after snow and rain, when you're making that claim using data that doesn't include said snow and rain.

You mean, continue expanding the capacity of some reservoirs. Because, as far as I know, we’ve already built all the dams that are really possible.

Unless you’re talking about Yosemite? 🤨

In terms of surface water, it’s over (for now). But groundwater is what takes multiple years to recharge, and even then some of the capacity has been permanently lost due to over-pumping, so no matter what there’s going to be less groundwater to fall back on when the next dry spell hits.

It’s poorly written. Chatbot?

California's natural resources can't support the acres of crops the investor class is trying to profit from

I thought there was going to be a text graphic that said, "because their idiots". Obviously not. That is an example (to me, maybe I'm an idiot) of a graphic that is not particularly informative.

>exactly. Why is California in a drought after they’ve sucked the ground completely dry of natural resources for tens of years. California’s natural resources can’t support the number of people they’re trying to house.

If you drive interstate-5 from Los Angeles to northern California you will see signs from the farm lobby essentially saying we should do to the San Joaquin River Delta what we've done to the Colorado river -- use every drop of fresh water so that none is left to flow to the sea.

I’m sure we’re all in agreement that dams on rivers are ecological disasters so let’s get away from that. We can build storage reservoirs by find natural depressions in the land and pumping water to them. Washington state has Banks lake which is a holding reservoir that was a dry coulee and dams were built at the top and bottom. water is pumped into it from the grand coulee dam.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banks_Lake

Almost all the reservoirs are over 100% of historical averages. The ski season has been extended to July so snow pack data is also in unknown territory.

The problem is there's less storage capacity than in the 70s due to dam demolition and no new reservoirs, despite being funded in 2014. In abnormally wet years, like 2022-2023, excess water floods communities and washes into the ocean. This is entirely on the shoulders of progressive legislators and the procession of governors in the state that kowtow to the whims of a few conservation groups who would like nothing better than for California to lose half its population.

You're misusing the terms "accurate" and "incorrect". "Out of date" is the term you are looking for.

The article was published March 2, and a long article like this may very well have taken a couple weeks to write, illustrate, fact-check, and edit, which might explain the use of older data.

Yeah you're right, it's accurate up to the date it was collected but it's meaningless and out of date now.

Snow pack is way higher than normal, about double, and reservoirs are pretty much full. Yeah it's over, but we'll start another one soon enough.

[removed]

The article covers the progression of droughts from 2000 to 2022. Only a small portion of what is said in the article can be discounted due to the recent storms. And that's frankly only if drought conditions don't immediately return within a few months.

Kind of true, but it is industry and agriculture that use most of the water. Ordinary people and residences use only a small fraction of that.

If you look at the data this article does not include any drought data since 1/17/23. It stayed at 99.36% until February.

>Why California is still in drought despite heavy rain and snow

Easy! If you don't account for any of the rain or snow then CA is still in drought!

The Roman Empire is doing great as well.

It's because they grow water super-intensive cash crops in places that are deserts for 8 months of the year.

The natural plants of the state can take the dry summers. Almonds cannot.

And it’s looking like more storms next week!

When you turn in an assignment that Chatgpt did without proofreading.

A lot of it is running off. The under ground wells are not refilling.

A big part of it is because they have a very underwhelming reservoir system.

Just want to add that the snowpack in a couple of basins is the highest it has ever been since recordkeeping began (~40 years).

USDA Snowpack Map

65% percent of ca is no longer in a drought. Went from 99% in a drought to just 34% this week. with the heavy rainfall. About 70” since October and reservoirs are releasing water. Places in ca claiming to have over four years over water supplies stores now.

Which is why this post shouldn’t have been posted to begin with

We have reservoirs for a reason, so that we don't have to rely solely on natural moisture retention

It does if you have sufficient reservoirs