“I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The live oaks got a crusty look and the sage-brush was gray. The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley. The cows would grow thin and sometimes starve to death. People would have to haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away. And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.”
Just as true with economic cycles and so many other things.
If we simply built like the people who first came to california did we would never have water shortages again.
Any water shortage is a 1:1 failure of the state to do the clear and obvious task needed.
Thus removing dams was actually useful amid a 25 year drought.
The reason we don't build like the people who first came to California did isn't because we're stupid, it's because we've learned a lot of lessons the hard way. If you're interested in some of the history I'd recommend Cadillac Desert, which is about western water in general, but which focuses a lot on California (including the machinations that the movie China Town was based on).
In the era of Trump/Republicans, I don't expect native issues to matter at all. "Drill baby drill" and all that.
So, actually, it is pretty simple if you're willing to finish the settler colonialist project that is our country.
But yeah, snowmelt plays a huge role in supplying water into the summer, so just looking at precipitation totals isn't the full picture.
Snowfall is currently 75% of normal.
We got so much, we got "Lake San Fernando Valley" as the Sepulveda Dam did the job it was put up to do all those years ago and flooded. People had to move so fast (behind the dam is the a large park and recreation area, no homes were directly impacted) they abandoned their cars, and, later, divers with scuba gear were being arrested for looting them.
One of the big hurdles for changing human behavior at scale is improving awareness. Even people who want to conserve their water usage benefit from frequent reminders to actually make changes stick. Being reminded the state is in a drought every time you go to a restaurant was an effective way to keep lots of people regularly conscious of the issue. Even if they complained about the method.
Between this and all the political nonsense that's happening right now, I feel like a passenger that's noticed the car is out of control while the driver is still opening his beer.
Well, not all of it, California leads IIRC.
We were also down to running sprinklers once a week (lawns are silly), but have had them off entirely for a bit now.
This year, Southern California is having a wet year while most of Northern California is having a relatively dry one.
Some of the towns in our county have developments built on floodplanes. In our neighborhood, only some streets have storm drains so many of them flood. On one of the main roads numerous trees fell over damaging walls and homes.
That last set of storms that really stands out were the El Niño events in the early oughts.
2025 was the coolest summer I’ve ever experienced living where I do near the coast with an onshore breeze that is now frigid and very wet at times. I usually get fog now in times of the year it rarely happened - almost like san francisco’s notorious summers.
Tracking local weather patterns used to be part of my last career so this stuff I notice pretty well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2026/01/18/winter-dro...
It does rain in deserts, of course. But most of California is not a desert anyway.
> Recent storms have brought snow to the Sierra Nevada mountains, but the state’s snowpack remains below average. According to the Department of Water Resources, the snowpack now stands at 89% of average for this time of year.
> Much of the West has seen warmer-than-average temperatures and relatively little snow so far this winter. The snow in the Rocky Mountains remains far below average, adding to the strains on the overtapped Colorado River, a major water source for Southern California.
Refilling the reservoirs is nice and all, but this is still essentially a payday loan out of the future.
One of the complexities of global warming is that it makes weather more extreme in all directions. It can be true that the same stretch of ground can be more susceptible to flooding in the same year it's more susceptible to drought.
bwoah•1h ago