Plenty of rain, snow in Northern California. But nothing close to a drought buster

Northern California is getting a nice spell of wet weather, the latest in a series of storms in what’s turning into a fairly wet April.

But a drought-buster? Forget it.

“Any water is good water at this point,” said Benjamin Hatchett, a climatologist at the Desert Research Institute in Reno.. “It’s very beneficial, but probably isn’t going to make much of a dent in the long-term situation.”

The long-term situation is an epic drought that’s in its third year, and even a robust April won’t be nearly enough to make up for the dismal winter that gripped California.

“There’s no way the spring rains can offset the amount of rain that did not show up in January, February and March,” said Michael Anderson, the state climatologist.

Anderson said California got a statewide average of 1.75 inches of precipitation from January to March. In a normal year, those three months yield about 11.5 inches, he said.

Even with the most recent storm, which was tapering off Friday, drought conditions are generally dismal.

The snowpack is just 31% as thick as it normally is for this time of year. The major reservoirs are in poor shape, too: Shasta Lake is less than half as full as it normally is. Lake Oroville is holding one-third less water than usual. As of Thursday, the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor said 95% of California is experiencing “severe drought.” About 40% of the state is in “extreme drought.”

Although Gov. Gavin Newsom has declined to order mandatory cutbacks in water use — unlike his predecessor Jerry Brown — state and local officials are tightening their grip on California’s meager supply. Newsom’s administration is reducing deliveries from the State Water Project and has warned cities and farms with historic water rights that they won’t be allowed to draw from rivers or streams. Newsom also ordered all urban water districts to move into Stage 2 of their drought plans.

For the city of Sacramento, that means higher penalties for repeated violations of the city’s twice-a-week limits on outdoor watering.

In parts of the Bay Area, it’s likely to mean more expensive water rates this year.

The Contra Costa Water District is considering a “temporary drought surcharge” that would cost the average residential customer an additional 28 cents a day.

The East Bay Municipal District’s governing board will vote next week on a surcharge of 2 to 8% to pay for water the district purchased from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The district is also considering an “excessive use water penalty” targeting households that are exceptionally heavy consumers of water, said spokeswoman Andrea Pook.

Anderson said the spring storms will at least help California avoid the debacle it encountered last spring, when an early streak of hot weather caused much of the snowpack to evaporate into the air or seep into the ground. The result was that California lost an estimated 800,000 acre-feet of Sierra runoff that had been expected to flow into the reservoirs. That would have been almost enough to fill Folsom Lake to the brim.

Nonetheless, this year’s runoff will still be pretty small, given how thin the snowpack is, he said. “But thank goodness we’re back to showing rain can actually fall,” he said.

Hatchett said April has been about 80% snowier than normal, as measured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at Tahoe City.

“You couldn’t actually ask for a better April,” he said.

This story was originally published April 22, 2022 at 7:26 AM.