The Rewetting of the Western U.S.

The last two weeks have been a major turnaround for water resources along the west coast of the U.S.  And a decided end of California's dry season and enough water to end the wildfire threat over central and northern CA.

Here are the precipitation totals for the past two weeks from the National Weather Service official analysis for the western U.S..   Significant totals, ranging from around 15 inches in the northern Cascades to 5-10 inches in the higher terrain of California.

But how much has this differed from normal for the past 2 weeks?  The figure below has the answer!  Most of Washington has been near normal, but California is another story....way above normal (3-7 inches)

The latest streamflow levels show most of our state has normal to above normal streamflow, with the exception of a few rivers over SW Washington.

California has normal to above normal streamflows after all the rains.

Reservoir storage in California is in good shape, most at or near normal (the red line), except for Lake Orville, the heavily damaged reservoir in which water levels have been held low).  There is plenty of room to store more water, and the recent rains are starting the process.

For example, there has been a huge surge upwards in the storage at Trinity Lake in northern CA (see below)

Here in Seattle, both cumulative precipitation and reservoir levels are close to normal (see below)

The bottom line is that worries about drought are now fading, as substantial precipitation has reached the west coast of the U.S.



from Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-rewetting-of-western-us.html