Wednesday December 4, 2024
San Francisco Chronicle —
California officials announced Monday that state reservoirs are on track to provide just 5% of the water requested by cities and farms next year, a remarkably small amount of water that could necessitate big water cuts — should the projection hold.
The grim estimate comes after what officials described as a slow start to the wet season; however, the allocation was calculated before storms over the past two weeks gave a significant boost to reservoir levels. The state is also trying to recover from a record hot summer that dried up rivers and creeks and faces long-term forecasts suggesting less-than-average precipitation for winter.
The new projection, most fundamentally, reflects the state’s cautiousness in promising water to urban and agricultural suppliers. Several years of drought over the past decade and an increasingly fickle climate have not only constrained supplies but complicated efforts to predict them. In many years, state officials have initially projected scant deliveries only to later ship significantly more water.