A wrap-up of posts published on Maven’s Notebook this week …
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In California water news this week …
How much did this week’s storms help California’s water supply?
“The historic and destructive storms that ravaged California this week have significantly boosted the state’s snowpack and water year outlook after a relatively dry start to the season, state water managers say. Some areas of Los Angeles County received more than a foot of rain over the past five days, while snowfall totals in the Sierra Nevada mountains surpassed two feet in some locations. This abrupt and dramatic change in California’s weather is being welcomed by the state’s Department of Water Resources with a caveat: despite the onslaught, these storms have merely helped the Golden State play catch up. … ” Read more from KTLA.
California weather takes break from storms, but here’s when rain could return
“California was hammered by storms at the outset of February, pushing San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego ahead of normal winter precipitation levels. But the Golden State is expected to take a breather from the wet weather for at least the next five days. Californians should use the weekend to recoup and clean up, because another period of wet weather is looking increasingly likely heading into Presidents Day weekend. … next week, the jet stream is expected to strengthen yet again over California, marking a return of a stormy pattern. … ” Read the full story from the San Francisco Chronicle.
El Niño’s end may be near. Here’s what’s coming next.
“Signs of a historically strong El Niño global climate pattern became obvious in recent weeks — including deadly fires in South America and deluges in California. Yet scientists are now predicting that the regime could disappear within months. Forecasters at the National Weather Service issued a La Niña watch Thursday, projecting that there is about a 55 percent chance that this pattern — which is the opposite of El Niño — will develop by August. The development of La Niña would have major consequences for weather in the United States and around the world. It could also temporarily slow the rapid global warming that began about nine months ago, when El Niño first took hold. La Niña is known for encouraging active and destructive Atlantic hurricane seasons, as well as promoting dry conditions for Southern California and the Southwest. … ” Read more from the Washington Post.
DWR: Weirs on the Sacramento River: 100 Years of Flood Control
Andrew Nixon / California Department of Water Resources
“Set into the banks of the Sacramento River as it winds its way south from its Mount Shasta headwaters are six large concrete structures which, despite their size, go largely unnoticed until the rains come and the river rises, threatening floods. Then they get to work, channeling the deluge into bypasses and basins, and away from the levees and bridges of Sacramento and other downstream communities. These unobtrusive structures, called weirs, are distributed along a 95-mile stretch of the river from Butte City to North Sacramento, acting as silent sentinels protecting millions of Californians from flooding. … ” Continue reading from DWR.
Newsom’s salmon strategy gets mixed reviews
Last week, the Newsom administration released its salmon strategy aimed at aimed at protecting and restoring salmon “amidst hotter and drier weather exacerbated by climate change.” Here’s what Cal Trout, Trout Unlimited, the Nature Conservancy, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, the Golden State Salmon Association, Northern California Water Association, and Restore the Delta have to say. Read this post from Maven’s Notebook.
EPA advocates for river flows to the Sacramento River Delta
“The Bay Delta Plan should focus more on the amount of water flowing through rivers and less on habitat restorations to restore its ecosystems, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) comments submitted to the State Water Resources Control Board. The Water Board, which is in the process of revising its draft Bay Delta Plan for public review, will decide what river-flow requirements and water-quality controls will govern uses within the Sacramento River watershed. The EPA’s comments came as part of the plan’s public comment period, which closed on Jan. 19. … In his written comment, EPA Water Division Director Tomás Torres said he supported using river flows as a primary objective of the plan. “Numeric criteria serve as consistent and transparent targets to drive implementation and EPA strongly recommends that the State Water Board include numeric flow objectives in its amendments to the Bay-Delta Plan,” according to Torres. … ” Read more from the Livermore Independent.
San Joaquin Valley Blueprint response to State Board draft report
Don Wright writes, “Proposals contained in a draft report prepared by the State Water Resources Control Board staff recommending updates to the Bay/Delta Plan have triggered warnings of extensive harm due to bias against the San Joaquin Valley and its people. The draft report can be a tough read with just the title and the table of contents taking up 72 pages. That’s partially why it was released last year in September with a comment deadline of January 2024. It takes a while to get through. … The Blueprint reviewed the draft report and came to some startling conclusions in a comment response recently submitted. For one, the report underestimates the amount of water available to the Valley by 300,000 acre feet. … ” Read more from Water Wrights.
San Joaquin Valley stakeholders contest State Water Board’s Bay Delta Plan Update
“The State Water Resources Control Board’s draft report, designed to update the Bay Delta Plan, has sparked a wave of criticism over its potential impacts on the San Joaquin Valley. A coalition of regional stakeholders, known as the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley, argues that the report’s proposed Unimpaired Flow Objectives (UIF) from tributaries will lead to significant water supply reductions. This, in turn, could adversely affect the region’s agricultural sector and overall socioeconomic health. One of the major criticisms levied against the report stems from the claim that it underestimates the water available to the Valley by 300,000 acre-feet. This miscalculation could lead to an erroneous perception of water scarcity and potentially biased policy decisions against the region. The report’s assumptions are also under fire for being inconsistent with other statewide objectives. … ” Read more from BNN Breaking.
One solution to states’ water problems could be auctioning off the rights
“There are a lot of debates and questions about how we allocate water, especially as supplies become scarcer. But what if we thought about water the same way we think about radio spectra? Billy Ferguson is thinking about that. Ferguson is a Ph.D. student in economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he focuses on water property rights and market design. He and his advisor, the Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Milgrom, have written a paper suggesting water could be auctioned off in a manner similar to a radio spectrum auction. Ferguson joined The Show to talk more about this idea and the connections he says he’s discovered between water allocation and electromagnetic spectrum allocation.” Listen to the show or read transcript from KJZZ.
Farmers in Tulare County set to test groundwater market they hope could help keep them in business and replenish the aquifer
“How will selling groundwater help keep more groundwater in the San Joaquin Valley’s already critically overtapped aquifers? Water managers in the Kaweah subbasin in northwestern Tulare County hope to find out by having farmers tinker with a pilot groundwater market program. Kaweah farmers will be joining growers from subbasins up and down the San Joaquin Valley who’ve been looking at how water markets might help them maintain their businesses by using pumping allotments and groundwater credits as assets to trade or sell when water is tight. There is a great deal of skepticism and concern, especially over possible harm to smaller farmers and vulnerable communities. So far, Central Valley groundwater basins have only gotten to the tinkering stage. … ” Read more from SJV Water.
DWR’s groundwater models provide valuable resources for managers of California’s critical water supply
“California’s historic effort to bring sustainability to the state’s critically important groundwater basins revealed an increased need for new and easily accessible groundwater data and tools to help local agencies better understand and manage their groundwater basins. After the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) in 2014, the Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) Statewide Groundwater Management program was there to meet the need with its long history of collecting, monitoring, and reporting statewide groundwater data that provides an understanding of current groundwater conditions and trends over time. California’s groundwater basins provide critical water supply to millions of Californians. … ” Read more from DWR.
Assemblywoman Soria introduces Assembly Bill 2060 to boost groundwater recharge
“[This week], Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria introduced AB 2060 to help divert local floodwater into regional groundwater basins. AB 2060 seeks to streamline the permitting process to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in support of Flood-MAR activities when a stream or river has reached flood-monitor or flood stage as determined by the California Nevada River Forecast Center or the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB). This expedited approval process would be temporary during storm events with qualifying flows under the SWRCB permit. … ” Read more from Assemblywoman Soria’s website.
Delta Conveyance Project faces stronger headwinds with court ruling rejecting financing scheme and new environmental litigation
“Though the Delta Conveyance Project (“DCP” or the “Project”) was only recently approved by the Department of Water Resources’ (“DWR” or the “Department”) after completing the lengthy California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process, the DCP faces new obstacles to implementation. Nine lawsuits challenging DWR’s December 21, 2023 approval of the Project were recently filed in Sacramento County Superior Court by a total of thirty-three plaintiffs representing all the Delta counties, the City of Stockton, environmental and other nongovernmental organizations, and tribe[s]. Resolution of that litigation could take several years. In the meantime, DWR will have to revisit its plans for financing the Project, most recently estimated to cost $16 billion. In an action known as Sierra Club, et al. v. California Department of Water Resources, the Sacramento County Superior Court rejected the Department’s attempt to validate revenue bond resolutions that would provide necessary funding to the Project. This article provides a brief analysis of the background and legal outcome of the case. … ” Read more from Somach Simmons & Dunn.
YOUR INPUT WANTED: Delta National Heritage Area Management Plan Released for Public Comment
“The Delta Protection Commission today released a public-comment draft of the Management Plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta National Heritage Area (Delta NHA). All interested parties are encouraged to view the plan here, and submit comments on the Plan by 5 p.m. March 6, 2024. Comments can be emailed to submit@delta.ca.gov, or mailed to the Delta Protection Commission, 2101 Stone Blvd., Suite 200, West Sacramento, CA 95691. In addition, members of the public may attend one of two scheduled meetings to comment in person: Feb. 21 in Walnut Grove and Feb. 22 in Antioch, both 6-8 p.m. An additional virtual meeting will be scheduled as well. “We’re excited and pleased to be at this juncture – a critical point in the development of this National Heritage Area,” said Commission Executive Director Bruce Blodgett. … ” Read more from the Delta Protection Commission.
Warming climate pushes rain to higher elevations, raising flooding risks
“A new study co-authored by UC Merced researchers assesses the effect of a warming climate in pushing the elevation of snow to rain higher during a storm, increasing runoff and the risk of flooding. The study also shows the importance of spatially representative ground measurements of hydrologic variables, an effective, accurate way to forecast runoff and inform decision making. That’s according to a study published in the Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies , which uses the American River Basin in California’s central Sierra Nevada, a region historically prone to flooding, as the study area. Using hydrologic modeling and widely accepted climate-warming scenarios, and with support from the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Federal Bureau of Reclamation, researchers at UC Merced examined how uncertainty in the elevation of the rain-snow transition affects runoff forecasting. … ” Read more from UC Merced.
USBR: Reclamation publishes overview of Colorado River evaporation history
“The Bureau of Reclamation today published an overview of historical natural losses along the lower Colorado River. The Mainstream Evaporation and Riparian Evapotranspiration report looks at water surface evaporation, soil moisture evaporation, and plant transpiration. It will be used by Reclamation as a source of data as it manages regional water operations and to improve the agency’s modeling efforts. “Reclamation’s approach to water management in the Colorado River Basin and across all Reclamation states is based on best available science, transparency, and inclusivity.” said Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton. “The release of the Mainstream Evaporation and Riparian Evapotranspiration study today evidences this commitment by informing our partners and the public about river and reservoir evaporation and transpiration in the Colorado River Basin.” The report provides an overview of average mainstream losses from both river and reservoir evaporation, as well as the evaporation and transpiration associated with vegetation and habitats along the river. … ” Read more from the Bureau of Reclamation.
In commentary this week …
California is hardly harvesting the deluge
Edward Ring, senior fellow with the California Policy Center, writes, “A historic barrage of atmospheric rivers hit California. Across the Sierra Nevada and down through the foothills into the valley, rivers turned into raging torrents, overflowing their banks and flooding entire communities. California’s Central Valley turned into an inland sea, as low lying farms and grasslands were incapable of draining the deluge. That was 1861, when one storm after another pounded the state for 43 days without respite. Despite impressive new terminology our experts have come up with to describe big storms in this century – “bomb cyclone,” “arkstorm,” and “atmospheric river” – we haven’t yet seen anything close to what nature brought our predecessors back in those pre-industrial times over 150 years ago. But we are getting rain this year. Lots of rain. … Are we harvesting this deluge? In this new age of climate change, which purportedly portends years of drought whipsawing occasionally into a year or two of torrential rain, do we have the means to take those so-called big gulps into storage? … ” Continue reading at the California Globe.
Unimpaired flow proposal could devastate local agriculture, our community and the environment
Rich Johansen, Nevada Irrigation District President, Board of Directors, writes, “While the Nevada Irrigation District (NID) is working hard to ensure the reliability of our water supply, the district is facing potential state regulations that would have dire negative impacts for agriculture, our community, fire protection, wildlife and aquatic habitat. State recommended regulations would affect NID operations and service, decreasing water supply and raising the cost of water to all customers if implemented. The California State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) is working to update an action plan to improve water quality and save imperiled fish populations, including salmon and delta smelt, in the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Bay-Delta). A recently released draft staff report includes an alternative that recommends increasing unimpaired flow to 55 percent from Northern California rivers and Sacramento/Feather River tributaries into the Bay-Delta. This includes the Yuba and Bear rivers, key source watersheds of NID’s water system. … ” Continue reading at YubaNet.
Kings County Farm Bureau responds to State Board re: Tulare Basin groundwater probation
Dusty Ference, Executive Director of the Kings County Farm Bureau, writes, “On November 8, 2023, the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) held a public information hearing in Hanford, intended to inform the public why SWRCB staff have recommended the Tulare Lake Subbasin be placed on probation for deficiencies in the subbasins Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP). Since then, local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSA) have been working to update the subbasins GSP in hopes of satisfying the SGMA and addressing the SWRCB’s concerns. … Under ideal circumstances, the SWRCB staff would examine the revised GSP before the probationary hearing scheduled for April 16, 2024. If the new plan meets the legal requirements, it would be presented to the SWRCB for final approval. However, during the November 8, 2023 public meeting, the SWRCB staff informed the attendees that they would require at least four months to review the document. Recent letters to the SWRCB have urged them to postpone the probationary hearing to allow for enough time for staff to review the updated plan. It appears those appeals were disregarded at the SWRCB. … ” Read more at Water Wrights.
Carbon capture in Montezuma Wetlands is a dangerous plan
Chirag Bhakta, California director of Food & Water Watch, writes, “Last May, a Bay Area company curiously named Montezuma Wetlands submitted an application to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to build a “CarbonHub” in Solano County’s Montezuma Wetlands. According to the proposal, the project would involve drilling a well for carbon injection and establishing an extensive expansion of submerged pipelines across San Francisco Bay. Almost immediately the project rightfully came under fire from our organization and many others due to the reality that such a venture would threaten public health, degrade the local environment and stall legitimate climate action. Indeed, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) — the process of trapping and storing climate pollution before it enters the atmosphere — has never worked in the real world and, in an ironic twist, has mostly been embraced by major polluters who see it as a way to claim they are cleaning up their act without changing anything. … ” Read more from the San Jose Mercury News.
The glaring omission in the State Water Board’s Bay-Delta Plan Update
The California Water Impact Network writes, “A not-so-funny thing happened when the State Water Resources Control Board decided to update its Bay-Delta Plan, the document that authorizes protective temperature ranges and flow requirements for the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and their shared Delta. Dubbed Phase 2, the proposed plan inexplicably omits protection for a major source of water for the Bay-Delta system: the Trinity River. The Trinity is the largest tributary to the Klamath River and is critical habitat for some of the state’s last wild salmon – fish that are essential to the food supply and culture of some of California’s largest Native tribes and a lynchpin of the commercial fishing and sport angling industries. While it is not in the Sacramento-San Joaquin watershed, the Trinity contributes on average over 600,000 acre-feet of water annually to the Sacramento River via three reservoirs and two tunnels. … ” Read more from the California Water Impact Network.
Column: Hate the storm? Then start getting serious about climate change
Sammy Roth writes, “You know how oil and gas pollution is supposed to bring not only hotter heat waves, drier droughts and bigger wildfires, but also more intense storms? Well, that’s what we’re experiencing in Los Angeles and across California this week, as an atmospheric river wallops the state with record rainfall, dangerous floods, major mudslides and power outages — with more to come. Although it’s too soon to say exactly how much responsibility global warming bears for the storm — let’s hope scientists conduct an attribution study before too long — this is exactly the kind of thing climate researchers have long predicted. … ” Read more from the LA Times.
Where does water wind up? You might be surprised
“Water, the essence of life, is an indispensable resource intricately woven into the fabric of our daily existence. From the food on our plates to the gadgets in our hands, water silently plays a pivotal role in the creation of almost everything we encounter. In a world where water scarcity is a looming concern, it is essential to explore the profound impact of water in the production of goods and services that shape our lives as well as the food we feed our families. Criticism often falls on agriculture for its water use. Consumers in California face limits of 55 gallons per person, per day in allowable indoor water use. It isn’t surprising that they might react negatively when confronted with the fact that more than 800 gallons of water is needed to grow the food one person consumes in one day. However, food is something we literally cannot live without. In addition, it’s crucial to recognize that the end user of farm water is not farmers but consumers. Whether you’re shopping for the items in a chicken fajita recipe, a bunch of broccoli or a carton of ice cream, you’re carrying water home from the farm. … ” Continue reading this commentary.
The long life and sudden demise of federal wetlands protection
Dan Farber writes, “It’s no wonder that one EPA staffer’s reaction to the Supreme Court ruling was a single word: “Heartbroken.” In 2023, the Supreme Court ended fifty years of broad federal protection to wetlands in Sackett v. United States. It is only when you look back at the history of federal wetland regulation that you realize just how radical and destructive this decision was. For instance, under the Court’s reasoning, a Reagan Administration regulation as a blatantly illegal environmentalist overreach. Here’s a timeline of the major events. … ” Continue reading at Legal Planet.
In regional water news this week …
Klamath Dams breaching leads to deer trapped in mud, dead fish, sediment-filled water
“For five days now, Lynda Leach has grabbed an empty mason jar, stepped outside her home and walked a short distance to the Klamath River to scoop up samples of the muddy water flowing by. “It’s on our lawn, our lower lawn,” Leach said Thursday in a telephone interview. “It’s black, gunky sediment.” The river is silt-choked following the breaching of three dams upstream in recent weeks. A fourth dam was removed last year, all in the name of river and fish health. …Leach is angry and sad about the silt in the river and the death of deer trapped in the mud flats — both the result of reservoirs behind the dams being drained in preparation for the dams’ removal later this year. So, to tell her story, she gathers her jars of muddy river water, shakes them up to simulate conditions in the river and sets them out in a row for a daily photograph that she posts to social media. … ” Read more from The Bulletin.
SEE ALSO: Residents shocked and saddened by loss of Copco Lake amid Klamath dam removal, from Jefferson Public Radio
A Republican’s quixotic quest against dam removal
“Water is flowing unimpeded down the Klamath River to the Pacific Ocean for the first time in more than a century — and Rep. Doug LaMalfa is depressed. “It’s our worst defeat since I’ve been a legislator,” he said in an interview ahead of PacifiCorp’s emptying of three reservoirs on the Klamath River in order to demolish the dams that stand in front of them. It’s the largest dam removal project in the country, and it’s a harbinger of the shifting politics around rivers in the age of climate change. The traditional fault lines that have long pitted anti-dam environmentalists and tribes against pro-dam farmers and utilities, who benefit from their water and electricity, are blurring. Dam owners are increasingly buckling under the costs of repairs, tighter environmental standards for migrating fish and the difficulties of managing more extreme storms and drought from climate change. … ” Read more from Politico.
PG&E drops diversion options from its Potter Valley Proposal, Mendocino County officials report
“Mendocino County officials said they will continue working on options for maintaining water diversions between the Eel and Russian rivers that were created more than 100 years ago for the Potter Valley Project, despite the announcement by the Pacific Gas and Electric company last week that it will no longer include plans being formulated by a regional group for modification of the hydroelectric plant’s infrastructure in its proposal for decommissioning the facility. “It’s a shock, and we’re still kind of reeling from it,” 1st District Mendocino County Supervisor Glenn McGourty told the Board of Supervisors during its Feb. 6 meeting, describing the announcement from the utility company as “very much like Lucy (pulling the football out from under) Charlie Brown every time we deal with PG&E.” … ” Read more from the Willits News.
The Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District wants to give water back to the Mad River to safeguard local control
“When the last remaining pulp mill on the Samoa Peninsula shuttered in 2010, the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District (HBMWD) lost its entire industrial customer base, resulting in an 80 percent drop in water consumption across the district. To make up for the dramatic reduction in water use, the district launched a water resource planning initiative to look for ways to increase industrial use to maintain its existing water rights, which are slated for review by the State Water Resources Control Board in 2029. If the district can’t find a way to increase its water use in the next five years, it could stand to lose nearly 50 percent of its water rights under the state’s “use it or lose it” system. “We have to figure out how to maintain our local water rights because, in the state of California, water rights are owned by the state,” district General Manager John Friedenbach told the Outpost. … ” Read more from the Lost Coast Outpost.
Significant amount of sewage spills into Sacramento River, Clear Creek after power outage
“A “significant volume” of untreated sewage spilled into Clear Creek and the Sacramento River on Sunday after a power outage caused pumps at the city of Redding’s nearby sewage plant to shut down, officials said Thursday. A storm with high winds knocked out power in the area of the Clear Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in south Redding after 11 p.m. Sunday night, city officials said. A back-up generator kicked on after the power went out, but a safety device on the pumps kept them from turning on. A wastewater treatment plant employee went to the plant and manually turned the pumps back on about 30 minutes later, officials said. … ” Read more from the Redding Record Searchlight.
Ridgecrest: Court of Appeals rules in favor of IWVGA in fee challenge brought by desert pistachio grower
“In a groundbreaking published opinion described as having “great public importance” that could “impact thousands of water users throughout the state for years to come,” the California Court of Appeals denied a request to avoid paying a fee needed to preserve groundwater resources brought by a farmer that used the water to grow pistachio trees in an arid desert. The court also barred any claims for damages associated with the imposition of the fee and questioned the farmer’s right to use water in such a seemingly frivolous manner. The dispute arose based on a replenishment fee adopted by the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority (IWVGA). … ” Read more from the Ridgecrest Independent.
Judge dismisses two claims, keeps key pieces of Kern River lawsuit intact
“A motion that challenged four claims made in a lawsuit against the City of Bakersfield over how it operates the Kern River got a half-and-half ruling from Kern County Superior Court Judge Gregory Pulskamp Monday evening. However, the heart of the lawsuit – that Bakersfield breached its duties under the Public Trust Doctrine by dewatering the river through town – will remain intact. “The City does not have the discretion to ignore its statutory and public trust duties,” Pulskamp’s ruling states. The judge also overruled opponents’ arguments that the Kern River isn’t subject to California Fish and Game Code 5937, which requires dam owners to allow enough water to pass those structures to keep downstream fish in good conditions. … ” Read more from SJV Water.
Water levels at Tulare Lake receding despite recent storms
“Last year’s record storms led to the return of the long-time dry Tulare Lake as waters flooded into the basin, putting vast swaths of farmland underwater. Today, it’s looking quite different. Last summer, Tulare Lake covered around 120,000 acres of land in Kings County. “If you think about Kings County, it’s about 890,000 acres total, and so with that coverage, over 10% of our county was covered in water, which is a pretty remarkable thing to think about.” Kings County Sheriff’s Sgt. Nate Ferrier said. In the months since, the water has receded drastically, now covering around 4,500 acres of land. … ” Read more from KFSN.
LA County captured enough rainfall this week to provide water to 65,600 residents for a year
“While this week’s atmospheric river drenched Southern California with record-breaking rainfall, some water managers were busy capturing some of that runoff to save for dry days ahead. Others were busy fending off an environmental disaster. Los Angeles County Public Works captured 2.7 billion gallons of stormwater as the rain fell in sheets, public information officer Liz Vazquez told CNN in an email – enough water for 65,600 residents for a year. In all, stormwater capture facilities across Southern California snagged around 15,000 acre-feet – or around 4.9 billion gallons – for recharge into groundwater since Sunday night, according to Rebecca Kimitch, a spokesperson for Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. … ” Read more from CNN.
L.A.’s monster storm was even worse in some areas than the alarming forecasts
“Southern California has a complex relationship with the rain. Many years, we get very little of it. But when the big storm hits, it can bring devastating deluges that instantly alter the landscape and put people in harm’s way. And that brings us to “Stormwatch,” the vital but sometimes mocked warnings about dangerous weather headed our way. For days, forecasters raised alarms about potentially life-threatening storms that would dump heavy rain on the region. It would be the latest in a winter of extreme weather that brought once-in-1,000-year flooding to Ventura and San Diego County. Many took the warnings seriously. A few scoffed. But in the end, the grim forecast turned out to be largely right — and in some cases actually underestimated the rainfall. … ” Read more from the LA Times.
