Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - Printable Version

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - M T - 03-17-2026

Sigh...  The misleading click-bait of a national news source: ABC News

ABC News main web site has an article dated March 16, 2026, titled "El Nino[sic] is likely to return this year, but its strength and impacts remain uncertain"
but the still image teasing for the article (among all the articles at the main web site) is a picture of flooding in Surfside Beach, TX (near Galveston) from June 19, 2024.  The linked article is here.

A caption identifying that image is overlaid immediately by a caption that says "Conveyor Belt of Storms Fueled by El Nino[sic] in California".
When you click on that image, you get an undated news clip ("Breaking News: Weather Emergency") of floods in Los Angeles.  Nowhere in the 2:27 video do they indicate the date of the news clip, potentially leading a casual viewer to think it is happening now. Probably the video is from January 2016.

FYI, as for the Surfside Beach photo, El Niño ended a month before, in May 2024.  Moreover, El Niño has minimal impact on summer rain in Texas. (Winter is a different story.)

The current NWS estimate is 1 in 3 chance that El Niño would be strong in October-December 2026.  Will that bring a conveyer of storms to California?  Well, the NWS records of historical ENSO events show only a minimal increase of precipitation in those months in California (or snow)

However, if El Niño is still going January to April (which is beyond the current prediction window), then California will likely get the storms.

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - Mick - 03-23-2026

Tahoe is up by 16 billion gallons since February 15, rising the water 7.5 to 8 feet. Seems to be good news.

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - BostonCard - 03-23-2026

I think that’s only because with the heat wave last week all the snowpack has melted into the lake.  I’m in Tahoe right now and the mountains are pretty bare.  Usually this would happen in May, but I think by the time May rolls around there will be no snow left to melt.

BC

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - 82lsju - 03-23-2026

(03-23-2026, 07:40 PM)Mick Wrote:  Tahoe is up by 16 billion gallons since February 15, rising the water 7.5 to 8 feet. Seems to be good news.

it better be, we skied Palisades and Alpine Meadows Tue-Thur last week and the amount of snow on the hill was getting pretty sparse, the highs while we were there were in the upper 60s

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - Leftcoast - 03-24-2026

If you think of snow in the Sierra's as "battery" storage for California's water then it's not good news to see the battery depleted so early in the season.  

We hit record highs last week in Santa Clara county ... in March.  Could be a long hot summer but thankfully on the backside of several good water years.

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - BostonCard - 03-24-2026

The good news is that it looks like we will have a late season storm next week.  It looks to be turning cold enough that there will be some snow; hopefully it will “recharge the battery” a little bit.

https://weather.us/model-charts/euro/california/significant-weather/20260331-1200z.html

BC

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - BostonCard - 04-07-2026

Looks like we are heading towards a monster El Niño, starting in June.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/weather/article/el-nino-strong-california-22191974.php

Lots of speculation on what that could mean for precipitation, but some people quoted in the article are predicting that this could be a very wet winter, comparable to 1997-98, when we got 200% normal precipitation.

BC

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - M T - 04-09-2026

This report is relevant to the broader picture 
Detailed map reveals groundwater levels across the U.S.

High resolution US water table depth estimates reveal quantity of accessible groundwater

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - Mick - 04-16-2026

San Diego has cut its water consumption nearly in half over the past 30 years. They used to import 95% of their water, it is now down to 10%. With the addition of their desalinization plant in Carlsbad, they now have so much water, and Lake Mead has fallen so low, they are selling extra water to Nevada and Arizona. 

They aren't literally shipping water, just trading water rights. Utah is also expressing interest, CA and UT governors have agreed in principle.

Interesting side benefit. The city's recycled water, branded as "Pure Water San Diego" is popular with local craft breweries who like its low-mineral content.

San Diego now has so much water that it’s selling it

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - M T - 04-16-2026

Interesting. Carlsbad was known for their alkaline well water ( pH 8.7 for alleged health benefits)

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - BostonCard - 04-25-2026

Update on California’s reservoirs:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/weather/article/water-reservoir-river-california-22222326.php

They are still in pretty good shape though there probably isn’t a lot of water stored in the Sierras in the form of snow left.

BC

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - Mick - 04-25-2026

Yesterday, California's 161 reservoirs were at 32.8 million acre feet, 120% of normal.

RESSW

STORAGE

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - old spanish trail - 04-25-2026

(04-25-2026, 11:53 AM)Mick Wrote:  Yesterday, California's 161 reservoirs were at 32.8 million acre feet, 120% of normal.

RESSW

STORAGE

Thanks, Mick. Glad to have this thread on the Board.

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - 82lsju - 04-25-2026

as of Apr 24, 2026 the statewide snowpack is 21% of normal for that day

https://cdec.water.ca.gov/snowapp/sweq.action

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - Mick - 06-25-2026

(04-07-2026, 05:51 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  Looks like we are heading towards a monster El Niño, starting in June.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/weather/article/el-nino-strong-california-22191974.php

Lots of speculation on what that could mean for precipitation, but some people quoted in the article are predicting that this could be a very wet winter, comparable to 1997-98, when we got 200% normal precipitation.

BC

Looks like it's going to be quite an El Nino phenomenon. Good article with the scientific underpinnings:
NASA satellite captures wave hundreds of miles long that signals a devastatingly strong El Niño

NOAA's Sacto office says this likely means a wet winter for Southern California with a modest bias to a wetter winter for Northern California.
ENSO Information for Northern California

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - Mick - 06-26-2026

Lake Powell is just 23.28% full, lowest ever and will reach "dead pool" conditions next spring (unable to generate electricity) if the trend doesn't reverse.

Why Lake Powell faces risk of 'dead pool' as level falls

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - Mick - 07-19-2026

(06-25-2026, 07:31 AM)Mick Wrote:  

(04-07-2026, 05:51 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  Looks like we are heading towards a monster El Niño, starting in June.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/weather/article/el-nino-strong-california-22191974.php

Lots of speculation on what that could mean for precipitation, but some people quoted in the article are predicting that this could be a very wet winter, comparable to 1997-98, when we got 200% normal precipitation.

BC

Looks like it's going to be quite an El Nino phenomenon. Good article with the scientific underpinnings:
NASA satellite captures wave hundreds of miles long that signals a devastatingly strong El Niño

NOAA's Sacto office says this likely means a wet winter for Southern California with a modest bias to a wetter winter for Northern California.
ENSO Information for Northern California

Apparently, this will be an historic El Nino, with the ocean temps rising 4 degrees C, prior highest rise was 2.75 degrees C in 2015. THey're talking about a once-in-4,000 years event.


Super El Niño charging 'full steam ahead,' potentially drenching California like never before

And a La Nina is happening in the Atlantic...
Rare La Niña may form at same time as super El Niño

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - cardcrimson - 07-20-2026

"drenching California like never before"

California has a history of major rainfall events and flooding, the last being the Great Flood of 1862 (Leland Stanford had to row back to the Governor's Mansion from his inauguration and enter through a second story window). That flood created a 300 mile lake in the Central Valley. The flood in 1605, give or take, was even more severe. Apparently, according to Native American oral history and scientific evidence, major floods hit CA about every 200 years or so. . . .

https://cw3e.ucsd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Dettinger_Ingram_sciam13.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - BostonCard - 07-20-2026

The Sacramento Bee had a good explanation:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article316467041.html

Specifically, the temperature anomaly, which is expected to reach about 3.5 standard deviations above the mean, is a 1 in 4000 year event.

Quote:These sea surface temperatures are almost 3.5 standard deviations above average for this time of year – the equivalent of a once-in-4,000-year event under normal conditions. Meanwhile, the upper-ocean heat content fueling this event is nearly double what was observed at the same point during the development of the 2023 El Niño.

However, how this translates to precipitation in California is not the same.  The expectation is that it is more likely to produce a wetter winter.  But the article notes that the last major El Niño (2015-16), dubbed the "Godzilla" El Niño, despite being under 3 standard deviations of an anomaly, didn't produce excess rainfall in California.

Quote:The 2015-16 El Niño, the strongest on record and dubbed as a “Godzilla” El Niño at the time, did not produce expected drought-busting rains for the state. Swain said this and the tiny sample size of large El Niño events also makes it difficult to communicate the situation.

I think this captures it well:

Quote:An El Niño of this magnitude is likely to produce more intense versions of its global climatic effects, and bring with it the risk of completely new climatic developments. Sailing into uncharted waters, worldwide weather patterns — wet or dry — may trend toward the extreme.

Hoping we get above average rainfall, as predicted, but not so much that it produces catastrophic flooding.

BC

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RE: Flooding, Lake Lag, California Water situation - cardcrimson - 07-20-2026

Claude had a field day with the hyperbole (my word) and projections from the article, especially as ocean temps in the Pacific have only been reliably monitored for 50 to 75 years. Tough to project a 1 in 4000 year event with such little base data.

If one of the assumptions is that it double or quadruples the chance of a catastrophic CA flood holds, the state is well overdue for one.  

Without getting political, I don't think the state is prepared for one. A while back, I had an interesting conversation with one of the lead experts at Contra Costa Flood Control. Basically when it hits, we are in deep trouble, as much of the county was under water then, and it wasn't as bad as what happened to the Central Valley and the LA Basin. . ..

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