Environmental engineer here (part of which is hydrology).
I'm not at all an expert in American hydrology, but I can sketch a European situation.
In European droughts it is typically not at all effective that a drought-struck area receives a lot of rain (think of a typical summer intensive rain event). The soil will not be open for it, and therefore all the rain that will fall will directly run-off into rivers and canals and be removed from the area. That summer rain might seem like an awful lot of water, but the water balance of the area will not benefit from it at all.
Much more effective is an input of water on a longer term. That can be typically one of two things:
Longer rain events, like drizzle and light rain over the course of week(s). This will moisten the soil, after which it will be much more open to saturate the soil and groundwater supplies with the rain.
A source of water coming from upstream. This is mainly an effect for irrigated (dry) areas. If there is a well-developed irrigation network, steady input of upstream water will make it very resilient to local droughts. Catalonia (and northeast Spain in general) is a prime example of that. A region that is climatologically dry, but is fed huge amounts of water by irrigation from the Pyrenees, therefore sustaining a lot of agriculture.
Another alternative is to have preventive storage. This concerns filling up lakes and reservoirs when it's wet, so water can be released when there's a drought. This is for example how northern Italy ensures they have a constant supply of water, while in the meantime also using the stored water for creating energy through hydropower.
I don't know California, but perhaps you or other more US-specialized Redditors might be able to draw conclusions from this argumentation.
_fishkey t1_ivfl8a0 wrote
Reply to What is more important to relieving drought: rain at the drought location, or rain/snow at the source of streams/rivers that feed into the location? by dante662
Environmental engineer here (part of which is hydrology).
I'm not at all an expert in American hydrology, but I can sketch a European situation.
In European droughts it is typically not at all effective that a drought-struck area receives a lot of rain (think of a typical summer intensive rain event). The soil will not be open for it, and therefore all the rain that will fall will directly run-off into rivers and canals and be removed from the area. That summer rain might seem like an awful lot of water, but the water balance of the area will not benefit from it at all.
Much more effective is an input of water on a longer term. That can be typically one of two things:
Another alternative is to have preventive storage. This concerns filling up lakes and reservoirs when it's wet, so water can be released when there's a drought. This is for example how northern Italy ensures they have a constant supply of water, while in the meantime also using the stored water for creating energy through hydropower.
I don't know California, but perhaps you or other more US-specialized Redditors might be able to draw conclusions from this argumentation.