[legitster]

> But we legislated and plumbed this state for a different climate pattern, when annual winter rains reliably fell on Sonoma and points north, and a full Sierra snowpack reliably melted through the spring and summer to feed streams and irrigate orchards and farm fields. That era is long gone. The snowpack comes unpredictably, because a warmer climate means water that formerly stayed in the mountains as snow through the summer now melts sooner, or falls as rain and rushes westward to the sea in the winter, when we need it the least. A quick look at any satellite photo from a heavy-snow year reveals that no number of new dams could ever replace the snowpack’s formerly reliable volume.

The headline is the epitome of burying the lede. If you read to the bottom, the writer clearly lays out the actual thesis: rainfall is the same - the problem is that snowpack is seriously declining. Which is kind of like a moisture battery. This is why climate change can counterintuitively cause both "droughts" and floods.

I'll admit that it took the longest time for me to understand the concept myself.

[bjt]

> rainfall is the same

Compared to the last 1,000 years, yes.

Compared to the abnormally wet 1900s-era patterns that established our current expectations, no.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> Compared to the abnormally wet 1900s-era patterns

This assertion seems to compare historical rainfall averages across the entire nation against just the SW region.

ref: https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/our-changing-climate...

[jjav]

> rainfall is the same

But it isn't. 20 to 10 years ago every winter in norcal was heavy rains for a few months.

That's happening less and less, many winters are now almost entirely dry (like current one).

[Melting_Harps]

> It will be good to know what that will be like from a client side perspective, speed, streaming etc.

Being born and raised in California and, and having been there until my mid 20s with occasional year long long projects and several trips back to see family I can tell you the winter snowfall are definitely lower.

This years crazy January freak me the hell out after having lived in Colorado where it's typical to have a slight snow fall at night into the morning and then have it all melt with near 70F by the afternoon.

We all knew that CA is susceptible to an incredibly precarious situation in regards to water and we were bombarded with a need for conservation since I was a kid in the 90s.

What never happened, however, was meaningful infrastructure investment and reform to accommodate for the rainy years that could be so heavy as to wipe out the roads to Big Sur, or make those celebrities mansions in Malibu fall into the Pacific.

And this is the problem, much like the homeless issue, money can be taxed for the purpose but so many either delay or skim so much that what is left is never going to be enough to actually solve the problem in any meanigful way.

When I was doing a project at the Clim Co-Lab for MIT, I also hung out at Caltech meetups and the topic of water reclamation was all the rage--the goal is to capture the water run off and replenish the aquifers in record rainy years for later usage.

Many spoke passionately about climate change's impact on the way of life in California, specifically in SoCal where we're from. But then politicians got their way with the budgets and it was this kind of non-sense [0] we ended up with to protect the LA reservoir that is a critical part of it's ability to meet the water needs of greater LA (where Caltech is in Pasadena).

I've seen this all my life, and it's why I decided to just no live in CA for any prolonged period; which pains me a multi-generational Californian with deep roots there. But whether it's this, their reaction to the shutdowns, homelessness, crime, poverty, nuclear waste storage etc... it's always the same result.

Sheer incompetence is tolerated far too much at the leadership level, and this is the crux of the problem. California has the resources to solve this critical issue, despite it's frontier-centric water right's issue, but it seems almost intent on gaming this like they did with Enron until it all blows up in their face, again.

Also, Colorado has decided to turn off the tap to the Colorado river due to the massive population growth in the last decade or so as they have had severe water wars due to periodic drought years.

I honestly hope renewable based desalination solves this, but I fear their will be like 20 years of deliberations and red-tape to wade through before anything gets done. Despite Carlsbad having a working plant [1] and model to follow for over a decade now--I was still in CA when it opened as I worked in the area.

0: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/150812-sh...

1: https://www.poseidonwater.com/carlsbad-desal-plant.html

[Qwertious]

FYI the shade balls aren't primarily about conserving water; that's just a side-benefit. There's a Veritasium video about it.

The shade balls are primarily to prevent the water's antibacterial chemicals from interacting with sunlight and becoming poisonous.

This became necessary after some recent upstream changes in the process.

[pnutjam]

Good fiction that deals with this, if anyone is interested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Knife

[ttwwmm]

Sonoma's water doesn't come from snowpack.