ARTICLE
In a year of both extreme heat and extreme drought California has reported its driest water year in terms of precipitation in a century, and experts fear the coming 12 months could be even worse. The Western Regional Climate Center added the average precipitation that had been reported at each of its stations and calculated that a total of 11.87 inches of rain and snow fell in California in the 2021 water year. That’s half of what experts deem average during a water year in California: about 23.58 inches. The climate center tallies rainfall by averaging all of the measured precipitation in the state at the end of a water year, which runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30. Specifically, the average total precipitation for Santa Cruz is 29.33 inches. I reached out to Ron Duncan, the General Manager of the Soquel Creek Water District, to get a local perspective. Here’s what I learned: Ron stated, “This is the state website that keeps data in CA. For the monthly weather index chart, we average the data from the DeLaveaga (station 104) and Watsonville West (station 209) CIMIS stations. https://cimis.water.ca.gov/ “The rainfall part of the chart below is made from the datalink and stations provided above. Basically what I am hearing is the Golden Gate Bridge is more or less the line where above it will get wetter and below drier. Although it feels like we are below the “line.” Naturally there is no actual line and the science is not exact; however, it paints a picture of what the scientists are saying.” Ron concluded his comments, “The kicker is the rain is forecasted to come in fewer big events and less spread out over time — high intensity and short duration. This can result in less groundwater recharge and probably less sustained surface flows.” The data shows that we had somewhere near 14-15 inches in the 2020-2021 water year. There are five categories of drought severity, determined by streamflow, soil moisture, rainfall and snowpack levels, and other factors. The least extreme is the abnormally dry category, growing in severity from moderate to severe, extreme and exceptional drought. An abnormally dry drought can lead to short-term dryness, slowing crop growth and lingering water deficits, while an exceptional drought creates widespread crop loss and water emergencies. These extreme conditions also play a role in the western US wildfire season as we have seen these past few years. Wildfires have always menaced California and that will never stop, especially with climate warming. What we can do is make them more controllable and less catastrophic. While wildfires are a natural part of California’s landscape, the fire season in California and across the West is starting earlier and ending later each year. Climate change is considered a key driver of this trend. Warmer spring and summer temperatures, reduced snowpack, and earlier spring snowmelt create longer and more intense dry seasons that increase moisture stress on vegetation and make forests more susceptible to severe wildfire. The length of the fire season is estimated to have increased by 75 days across the Sierras and seems to correspond with an increase in the extent of forest fires across the state. Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California State Legislature are attempting to conceive a plan by increasing the flow of unprecedented amounts of money into fire prevention. Although there should be incremental improvements, addressing the climate changes and level of under-management of our forest lands will take time. At last week’s monthly Community Affairs Committee (CAC) meeting, we had the pleasure of speaking with our state Senator John Laird. The Senator gave the committee a short summary of the state legislative activities that concluded at the end of September. One of the Senator’s bills during the session, SB 456 was signed into law by Governor Newsom. The bill will require the state to establish a long-term fire prevention action plan to ensure statewide investments to combat fires are comprehensive, science-based and utilize complementary partnerships. Here is the Senator’s press release on the specifics: https://sd17.senate.ca.gov/news/long-term-wildfire-mitigation-planning-bill-laird-signed-governor. This legislation will provide accountability on how state resources should be used to fight wildfires. So where does this leave us heading into the rainy season? To put it bluntly — we are in between a dry rock and a hot, hot spot. There is no dispute that we need a wet rainy season but at the same time, this season must bring a consistent level of rain over a longer period. Areas in the county that have suffered wildfires like the San Lorenzo Valley and up along our northern coast are in the early stages of regrowth. The spot fires like the Estrada Fire in Corralitos and the smaller (but just as dangerous) fires along the Pogonip are warning signals of our fragile environment. A closer look at the CalFire website provides a snapshot glance at the 2021 fire season: 2,495,174 acres burned, 8,106 incidents, 3 fatalities and 3,629 structures damaged or destroyed. Let’s focus on what can be done in the short term to better prepare for the climate changes that represent the new normal. First, let’s revise how we manage our state and federal forest lands as well as private property that abuts our forests. The Santa Cruz Long Term Recovery Group (http://www.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/FireRecovery/LongTermRecoveryGroup/WhoWeAre.aspx) was formed in July 2021. The County’s fire recovery efforts are the result of direction provided by the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, who formed the Office of Response, Recovery and Resilience (OR3) in December 2020. The primary mission of the OR3 is to coordinate CZU Lightning Complex Fire recovery efforts and to focus on responding to opportunities to build the County’s resilience for future disasters. There needs to be a greater focus on Best Management Practices (BMPs), creation of defensible space, forest education and fact-based planning. We should take a lesson learned from the recent Caldor Fire in the Sierras and Tahoe Basin. As I have noted before, during my time on the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) board, we worked diligently to address a cooperative all-hands approach to fire prevention and projection. Here is an easy read about TRPA’s current response from the Executive Director: https://www.trpa.gov/caldor-fire-and-climate-resilience/. In short, TRPA is engaged with the USFS Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit (LTBMU), state and local agencies, and property owners on immediate risks to safety and water quality and on emergency stabilization. The forthcoming USFS Burned Area Emergency Response Team report will help guide as much work as possible before winter sets in, with the ultimate goal of restoring the burned area and dozer lines as close to pre-fire conditions as possible. Science partners through the Tahoe Science Advisory Council are rapidly responding to the potential negative effects from the wildfire with sampling and data collection. An extensive monitoring system already in place is helping with the research and expanded sampling in the impacted streams will help us understand fire effects on water quality. Research priorities will assess how smoke and ash impact the lake, how fuels management in the fire works in comparison to untreated forest, and will evaluate restoration techniques on water quality. We can apply similar practices here in Santa Cruz County.
In a year of both extreme heat and extreme drought California has reported its driest water year in terms of precipitation in a century, and experts fear the coming 12 months could be even worse.
The Western Regional Climate Center added the average precipitation that had been reported at each of its stations and calculated that a total of 11.87 inches of rain and snow fell in California in the 2021 water year. That’s half of what experts deem average during a water year in California: about 23.58 inches.
The climate center tallies rainfall by averaging all of the measured precipitation in the state at the end of a water year, which runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.
Specifically, the average total precipitation for Santa Cruz is 29.33 inches. I reached out to Ron Duncan, the General Manager of the Soquel Creek Water District, to get a local perspective. Here’s what I learned:
Ron stated, “This is the state website that keeps data in CA. For the monthly weather index chart, we average the data from the DeLaveaga (station 104) and Watsonville West (station 209) CIMIS stations. https://cimis.water.ca.gov/
“The rainfall part of the chart below is made from the datalink and stations provided above. Basically what I am hearing is the Golden Gate Bridge is more or less the line where above it will get wetter and below drier. Although it feels like we are below the “line.” Naturally there is no actual line and the science is not exact; however, it paints a picture of what the scientists are saying.”
Ron concluded his comments, “The kicker is the rain is forecasted to come in fewer big events and less spread out over time — high intensity and short duration. This can result in less groundwater recharge and probably less sustained surface flows.” The data shows that we had somewhere near 14-15 inches in the 2020-2021 water year.
There are five categories of drought severity, determined by streamflow, soil moisture, rainfall and snowpack levels, and other factors. The least extreme is the abnormally dry category, growing in severity from moderate to severe, extreme and exceptional drought. An abnormally dry drought can lead to short-term dryness, slowing crop growth and lingering water deficits, while an exceptional drought creates widespread crop loss and water emergencies.
These extreme conditions also play a role in the western US wildfire season as we have seen these past few years. Wildfires have always menaced California and that will never stop, especially with climate warming. What we can do is make them more controllable and less catastrophic. While wildfires are a natural part of California’s landscape, the fire season in California and across the West is starting earlier and ending later each year. Climate change is considered a key driver of this trend. Warmer spring and summer temperatures, reduced snowpack, and earlier spring snowmelt create longer and more intense dry seasons that increase moisture stress on vegetation and make forests more susceptible to severe wildfire. The length of the fire season is estimated to have increased by 75 days across the Sierras and seems to correspond with an increase in the extent of forest fires across the state.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California State Legislature are attempting to conceive a plan by increasing the flow of unprecedented amounts of money into fire prevention. Although there should be incremental improvements, addressing the climate changes and level of under-management of our forest lands will take time.
At last week’s monthly Community Affairs Committee (CAC) meeting, we had the pleasure of speaking with our state Senator John Laird. The Senator gave the committee a short summary of the state legislative activities that concluded at the end of September. One of the Senator’s bills during the session, SB 456 was signed into law by Governor Newsom. The bill will require the state to establish a long-term fire prevention action plan to ensure statewide investments to combat fires are comprehensive, science-based and utilize complementary partnerships. Here is the Senator’s press release on the specifics: https://sd17.senate.ca.gov/news/long-term-wildfire-mitigation-planning-bill-laird-signed-governor. This legislation will provide accountability on how state resources should be used to fight wildfires.
So where does this leave us heading into the rainy season? To put it bluntly — we are in between a dry rock and a hot, hot spot. There is no dispute that we need a wet rainy season but at the same time, this season must bring a consistent level of rain over a longer period. Areas in the county that have suffered wildfires like the San Lorenzo Valley and up along our northern coast are in the early stages of regrowth. The spot fires like the Estrada Fire in Corralitos and the smaller (but just as dangerous) fires along the Pogonip are warning signals of our fragile environment.
A closer look at the CalFire website provides a snapshot glance at the 2021 fire season: 2,495,174 acres burned, 8,106 incidents, 3 fatalities and 3,629 structures damaged or destroyed.
Let’s focus on what can be done in the short term to better prepare for the climate changes that represent the new normal. First, let’s revise how we manage our state and federal forest lands as well as private property that abuts our forests. The Santa Cruz Long Term Recovery Group (http://www.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/FireRecovery/LongTermRecoveryGroup/WhoWeAre.aspx) was formed in July 2021. The County’s fire recovery efforts are the result of direction provided by the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, who formed the Office of Response, Recovery and Resilience (OR3) in December 2020. The primary mission of the OR3 is to coordinate CZU Lightning Complex Fire recovery efforts and to focus on responding to opportunities to build the County’s resilience for future disasters.
There needs to be a greater focus on Best Management Practices (BMPs), creation of defensible space, forest education and fact-based planning. We should take a lesson learned from the recent Caldor Fire in the Sierras and Tahoe Basin. As I have noted before, during my time on the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) board, we worked diligently to address a cooperative all-hands approach to fire prevention and projection. Here is an easy read about TRPA’s current response from the Executive Director: https://www.trpa.gov/caldor-fire-and-climate-resilience/.
In short, TRPA is engaged with the USFS Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit (LTBMU), state and local agencies, and property owners on immediate risks to safety and water quality and on emergency stabilization. The forthcoming USFS Burned Area Emergency Response Team report will help guide as much work as possible before winter sets in, with the ultimate goal of restoring the burned area and dozer lines as close to pre-fire conditions as possible. Science partners through the Tahoe Science Advisory Council are rapidly responding to the potential negative effects from the wildfire with sampling and data collection. An extensive monitoring system already in place is helping with the research and expanded sampling in the impacted streams will help us understand fire effects on water quality. Research priorities will assess how smoke and ash impact the lake, how fuels management in the fire works in comparison to untreated forest, and will evaluate restoration techniques on water quality. We can apply similar practices here in Santa Cruz County.