Overcast with shimmering ground fog this early Thursday on California’s north coast — but no rain. Our latest storm front is history.
And so is water — the San Francisco Chronicle:
It is a bleak roadmap of the deepening crisis brought on by one of California’s worst droughts – a list of 17 communities and water districts that within 100 days could run dry of the state’s most precious commodity.
The threatened towns and districts, identified this week by state health officials, are mostly small and in rural areas.
They get their water in a variety of ways, from reservoirs to wells to rivers. But, in all cases, a largely rainless winter has left their supplies near empty.
One-tenth of an inch doesn’t make a horrific rain storm — up here we had .39 of an inch, which is nothing more than getting the ground wet.
(Illustration found here).
And as the story unfolds: “As the drought goes on, there will be more that probably show up on the list,” said Dave Mazzera, acting drinking-water division chief for the state Department of Public Health.
Up here, too, we get our drinking water from local rivers — the Mad, the Eel, and their off-shoots and tributaries — and even some those sources are in trouble. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has closed some of the water points in our system for fishing because of the drought.
Via Lost Coast Outpost:
“We fully understand the impact these closures will have on California anglers and the businesses related to fishing in California, and we really feel for them,” said CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham.
“However the science is clear. Two-thirds of the wettest part of winter is now behind us and conditions are looking increasingly grim.
“Under these extreme drought conditions, it is prudent to conserve and protect as many adult fish as possible to help ensure the future of fishing in California.”
And the reason:
Current low stream flow conditions will prevent the movement of migrating anadromous fish, primarily wild steelhead trout.
Stream flows in many systems are inadequate to allow passage of spawning adults, increasing their vulnerability to mortality from predation, physiological stress and angling.
Furthermore, survival of eggs and juvenile fish in these systems over the coming months is likely to be extremely low if the current drought conditions continue.
These temporary angling closures on selected streams will increase survival of adult wild steelhead.
This type of life is expected to continue, and then get worse. Climate change is a strange, wonderous beast that won’t be stopped or contained, and as the planet heats, weird shit will come forth and make that life nearly unbearable.
Already here (via Climate Progress):
On “Spare the Air” days in San Francisco, it’s illegal to burn wood or any other solid fuels in fireplaces, woodstoves, or outdoor fire pits.
Since November, a record 30 Spare the Air alerts have been issued in the Bay Area, as day after day of poor air quality obscure views of the Golden Gate Bridge. Last winter, there were only 10.
San Francisco is just one of many cities across the West and Southwest that are enduring dangerous air pollution thanks to stubbornly dry conditions.
2013 was California’s driest year on record, and January will likely go down as the driest month ever.
“The West Coast has been dominated by a persistent weather pattern since last year with the jet stream staying far to the north, preventing moisture-laden Pacific storms from affecting California,” meteorologist Chris Dolce told The Weather Channel.
“Unfortunately, it appears this pattern will persist through the end of January with no significant precipitation in the forecast.”
Drought affects air quality in many ways: there’s more dust, a greater chance of smoke-belching wildfires, and no rain to wash pollutants out of the air.
The current ridge of high pressure parked over the West Coast is diverting the storms from the Pacific Ocean which normally make the winter months the best season in terms of air quality.
Storms not only wash the air, they also bring in fresh air from the ocean, diluting the smog.
By far the worst-hit area is the Central Valley where even healthy people are being told to avoid going outside.
This winter is the most polluted on record for the area, which is no stranger to bad air days.
The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District board told the AP that the region would have clean winter air if it weren’t for the drought.
The concentration of fine particulate matter in the air has been nearly three times the federal standard.
Even as we suffocate in the polluted, dry air, back east, Atlanta is in chaos due to a sharp, way-cold snow storm that shattered-across the Deep South this week — my oldest daughter lives near Mobile, Ala., and she told me last night the National Guard has been called out to keep the roads clear.
Scenes of scenes to come — dry-screaming falling down.