[jacket3ree]

2017 was our last really wet winter.  I'm interested to see what it looks like today, and whether it fills up this winter.  Anyone with eyes on the lake?

I think this is going to be a really wet winter. Next two weeks promise lots of statewide precipitation. The larger (500k AF+) California lakes and reservoirs have plenty of capacity. Shasta, Oroville, San Luis and Folsom are about 1/3rd full; Pine Flat, McClure, New Melones and Trinity are 1/4th full; Don Pedro, Berryessa and Almanor are about half full. Some of the others have lesser capacity; Diamond Valley, New Bullards and Friant are around 2/3rds full. Isabella's only 9% full.

RESSW.pdf (ca.gov)

Oroville is at 47%, Folsom and Shasta's increased to 42%, San Luis is up to 39%.

Pine Flat is at 36%, McClure is at 42%, New Melones is at 33%. Trinity still at 26%.

Don Pedro (67%), Berryessa (57%) and Almanor (60%) are filling up.

Diamond Valley (61%), New Bullards (72%) and Friant (78%) are filling up fast.

Isabella is at 12%

Locally; Lexington, in Los Gatos, is at 76%; Stevens Creek is at 69%, Lower Crystal Springs (San Mateo) is at 90%, San Andreas is at 92%, Uvas is at 104%Q, Clifton Court Forebay is at 58%.

Lots of SF Bay reservoirs at 100%+ capacity, including Lake Hennessey, San Antonio, U San Leandro, Chabot, Coyote Reservoir. Calaveras at 96%.

The bolded describes half of my professional life at the moment in a nutshell.  This weekend might be bad. Lake Lag will be the least of our worries. (In the biz, we call golf courses "detention basins".)  Stay safe everyone.

---

I haven't been tracking rainfall amounts at other locations, but at two home weather stations near me (about 8 mi SE of Stanford, between El Camino Hospital and Loyola Corners), the rain fall totals for December and January(so far) are 9.68+7.10=16.78"  and 9.63+8.00=17.10", about 3x average for that interval.  Average yearly rainfall is about 18.1".    Even if the rain stopped today, the lake levels will continue to rise as the water drains into them.

A WeatherUnderground station on Stanford campus indicates the rain there has been 5.73(Dec)+4.09(Jan) = 9.82.  Another one more in downtown Palo Alto shows 10.0+4.23 = 14.23

Using data from weather.gov for "San Jose Area", here are the seasonal year totals for the San Jose Area, 1894-2022. (2021-2022 is labelled 2022)


The only caution I see is that this weather has all been relatively warm, so more precipitation is in the form of rain, with less as snow.

Right, snow is more important for the State's overall water supply; rain for the local supplies that are not tied to State Water, like Marin and Sonoma Counties. With Anderson drained as we do the seismic retrofit, Santa Clara County has lost most of its local supply. Really need San Luis to fill up and support import. Some of the deeper coastal groundwater basins (e.g. Castroville-Salinas) where people have been forced to find freshwater that is not intruded with saltwater take thousands of years to recharge with "connate" water, so not much help there, ever.

This graph is illustrative. There is a mean value, but look at the variability and lack of persistence from year to year.  Random City!  I'm still in the process of stochastically generating 100,000 years of record for the work at Anderson (Rev. 13 of the report on my desktop now), so I'll thank David Freyberg and his Stochastic Hydrology course circa 1985.  But starting to blow cover here, so I'll stop.

[jacket3ree]

2017 was our last really wet winter.  I'm interested to see what it looks like today, and whether it fills up this winter.  Anyone with eyes on the lake?

I think this is going to be a really wet winter. Next two weeks promise lots of statewide precipitation. The larger (500k AF+) California lakes and reservoirs have plenty of capacity. Shasta, Oroville, San Luis and Folsom are about 1/3rd full; Pine Flat, McClure, New Melones and Trinity are 1/4th full; Don Pedro, Berryessa and Almanor are about half full. Some of the others have lesser capacity; Diamond Valley, New Bullards and Friant are around 2/3rds full. Isabella's only 9% full.

RESSW.pdf (ca.gov)

Oroville is at 47%, Folsom and Shasta's increased to 42%, San Luis is up to 39%.

Pine Flat is at 36%, McClure is at 42%, New Melones is at 33%. Trinity still at 26%.

Don Pedro (67%), Berryessa (57%) and Almanor (60%) are filling up.

Diamond Valley (61%), New Bullards (72%) and Friant (78%) are filling up fast.

Isabella is at 12%

Locally; Lexington, in Los Gatos, is at 76%; Stevens Creek is at 69%, Lower Crystal Springs (San Mateo) is at 90%, San Andreas is at 92%, Uvas is at 104%Q, Clifton Court Forebay is at 58%.

Lots of SF Bay reservoirs at 100%+ capacity, including Lake Hennessey, San Antonio, U San Leandro, Chabot, Coyote Reservoir. Calaveras at 96%.

The bolded describes half of my professional life at the moment in a nutshell.  This weekend might be bad. Lake Lag will be the least of our worries. (In the biz, we call golf courses "detention basins".)  Stay safe everyone.

---

I haven't been tracking rainfall amounts at other locations, but at two home weather stations near me (about 8 mi SE of Stanford, between El Camino Hospital and Loyola Corners), the rain fall totals for December and January(so far) are 9.68+7.10=16.78"  and 9.63+8.00=17.10", about 3x average for that interval.  Average yearly rainfall is about 18.1".    Even if the rain stopped today, the lake levels will continue to rise as the water drains into them.

A WeatherUnderground station on Stanford campus indicates the rain there has been 5.73(Dec)+4.09(Jan) = 9.82.  Another one more in downtown Palo Alto shows 10.0+4.23 = 14.23

Using data from weather.gov for "San Jose Area", here are the seasonal year totals for the San Jose Area, 1894-2022. (2021-2022 is labelled 2022)


The only caution I see is that this weather has all been relatively warm, so more precipitation is in the form of rain, with less as snow.

Right, snow is more important for the State's overall water supply; rain for the local supplies that are not tied to State Water, like Marin and Sonoma Counties. With Anderson drained as we do the seismic retrofit, Santa Clara County has lost most of its local supply. Really need San Luis to fill up and support import. Some of the deeper coastal groundwater basins (e.g. Castroville-Salinas) where people have been forced to find freshwater that is not intruded with saltwater take thousands of years to recharge with "connate" water, so not much help there, ever.

This graph is illustrative. There is a mean value, but look at the variability and lack of persistence from year to year.  Random City!  I'm still in the process of stochastically generating 100,000 years of record for the work at Anderson (Rev. 13 of the report on my desktop now), so I'll thank David Freyberg and his Stochastic Hydrology course circa 1985.  But starting to blow cover here, so I'll stop.