Reservoirs and streams are in good shape in California and the Great Basin, but groundwater and ecosystems are another story. And then there’s the Colorado River Basin.
Heavy rain from a series of atmospheric rivers flooded large parts of California from late December 2022 into early January 2023.
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Extreme weather has an outsized impact on everyday life. Focusing on average weather patterns may make Americans dangerously complacent about how climate change is already affecting our lives.
Tokyo International Youth Hostel.
Gavin Anderson/Flickr
Long-term drought and water shortages in many parts of the U.S. are spurring interest in ways to reuse graywater – the water that drains from sources such as showers, bathtubs and washing machines.
Oroville Dam in California, where water levels had fallen 30% by 2014.
Dam image from www.shutterstock.com
California’s drought is dragging on into its fifth year. What can the state learn from Australia’s 15-year millennium drought?
Lake Mead in Arizona – water demand is outstripping supply in the Southwest as the weather has gotten warmer and the population has grown.
gorbould/flickr
Federal agencies pay much of the cost to fight forest fires, which means taxpayers are subsidizing the risky practice of building more homes at the wildland-urban interface.
Comparison of Sierra Nevada snowpack in 2015 v 2010.
NASA/MODIS
According to scientists, tree-ring analysis shows that California drought is the worst it has been in 500 years.The study underscores the severity of current drought and the challenges of future water management in the state.
Faith Kearns, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Doug Parker, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
El Niño is expected to bring heavy rains to drought-stricken California, but more rain alone won’t solve the West’s water crisis.
Really dry: a Colorado River aqueduct in southern California.
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Historical analysis shows that natural forces are behind California’s drought, but global warming has contributed 8%-27% to the drought’s severity.
People in the Philippines have been warned to brace for wet and wild weather, as this year’s El Nino shapes up to be the strongest since 1998.
EPA/RITCHIE B. TONGO/AAP
The seesaw between El Niño and La Niña is set to get stronger with global warming. Signs are that this year and next will deliver a big swing from one to the other, prompting fires and floods across the world.
In a hotter, drier West, who, besides fish, will be most harmed?
James Marvin Phelps/flickr
Hydrologists, climate scientists and policymakers are beginning to grapple with a difficult question: who will be affected most by longer and more frequent droughts?
Historic: weather patterns similar to what’s causing the drought in California are happening in Brazil.
Hudsӧn/flickr
The same persistent weather pattern bringing hot, dry conditions to California is likely connected to a punishing drought in the Sao Paulo area in Brazil.
How low can it go? The Hoover Dam in May.
David Feldman
As California enters another hot dry summer, policymakers from water and electric utilities are looking at ways to preserve these interdependent resources.
California’s heavy reliance on groundwater is raising worries.
General Physics Laboratory (GPL)
Americans love their lawns but are lawns good for America, particularly in drought-stricken areas? A look at our grassy love affair and what might be better alternatives.