February 2,2015
SF didn’t get any rain in January but saw an atmospheric river in December and now one bearing done on us next weekend.When it rains – it pours.
With this weeks atmospheric river storm in the offing (one foot of rain in the N Bay says NWS-SF ) promising to drop 7 to 12 inches of precipitation in the Shasta reservoir region – it is possible we will pass last year’s totalShasta storage of 2.4 million acre feet in the next 3 weeks from its current level at 2 million.
Shasta is a key reservoir – the headwater to the mighty Central Valley Project. With only 1 million acre feet in storage as of last December 1 the reservoir quickly picked up around 900,00af in December (see how chart shoots straight up) and the rest by the end of January. Northern California saw a an atmospheric river event December 11 and 12,13,14.
Now with these series of wet events coming next weekend the lake level is likely to rise rapidly again on the way to passing that very low 2.4 MAF level of 2014.
That would put it at just a little over half full as the reservoir holds 5.4 MAF. The average for this time of year is 3.2 MAF and with enough wet weather in February we could reach that level.
That would put us in striking distance to the 4 million acre/ft or better high water level for April we saw in 2010, 2011 and 2012 before falling back to 378 mil/af in April 2013 and of course that meagre 2.4 MAF last year.
What’s the bottom line? Shasta fills if we have enough atmospheric rivers coming into the north part of the state. With the ground well saturated with day after day of rain, most rain does not sink in the ground but flows to the lake, notes a Bureau spokesperson.