Worst CA Drought In As Much As 1,200 Years As Seen By Satellite

LOS ANGELES — NASA recently released satellite images putting California's drought into stark relief.

The drought was made worse by the first major heat wave of the year and has demolished temperature records and left the state a tinderbox as it heads into fire season.

Above-normal May temperatures completely melted the state’s snowpack months earlier than usual. California was already in a state of emergency when the heat wave hit, bringing record temperatures as high as 123 degrees in Palm Springs on Thursday.

The heat wave — which also shattered records across the western United States last week — exacerbated California's drought: 85 percent of the state fell into extreme drought as of June 17, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The drought has now reached historic proportions and drew comparisons with the end of the state’s previous seven-year drought, from which it emerged in 2017.

“This current drought is potentially on track to become the worst that we’ve seen in at least 1,200 years,” Kathleen Johnson, associate professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, told The Guardian. “And the reason is linked directly to human-caused climate change.”

Golden State residents have become accustomed to droughts that have afflicted the state more often than not this century. But this drought is the result of much hotter and drier conditions, and snowpacks and reservoirs have evaporated at unprecedented speeds. Consider the following:

• Last year was the third driest on record in terms of precipitation.
• Temperatures hit triple digits in much of California over the Memorial Day weekend, earlier than expected.
• State officials were surprised earlier this year when about 500,000 acre-feet (61,674 hectare-meters) of water expecting to flow into reservoirs never showed up. One acre-foot is enough water to supply up to two households for one year.

The level of the state's more than 1,500 reservoirs is 50 percent lower than it should be this time of year, according to Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis.

“In the previous drought, it took [the reservoirs] three years to get [as] low as they are in the second year of this drought,” Lund said.

The effects of dwindling reservoirs go beyond luxury yachts and weekend anglers. Salmon need cold water from the bottom of the reservoirs to spawn. San Francisco Bay needs fresh water from the reservoirs to keep out the saltwater that harms freshwater fish. Farmers need the water to irrigate their crops. Businesses need reservoirs full so people will come for recreation and spend money.

And everyone needs the water to run hydroelectric power plants that supply much of the state's energy.

If Lake Oroville falls below 640 feet (195 meters) — which it could by late August — state officials would shut down a major power plant for the first time ever because of low water levels, straining the electrical grid during the hottest part of the summer.

California hasn’t seen such dry conditions since 1977.

The drought is causing varying emergencies across different parts of the state. Groundwater levels have fallen so low near the Sacramento and San Joaquin river deltas that saltwater intrusion is a real risk, prompting plans for a $30 million rock barrier to protect the fresh water.

Vineyards along the Russian River have been instructed to restrict water use, and farms in the Central Valley are being left fallow. In Southern California, brush fires have become a daily occurrence months before the traditional start of fire season.

But the drought that ended just four years ago was extreme, and in many ways it left the state prepared for dire conditions

“This extra dryness and the unusual warmth has made this second year of drought more like the third or fourth year of the previous drought (2012-2016). So California is having to react faster than usual,” Lund told NASA’s Earth Observatory. “On the other hand, the recent 2012-2016 drought has more of the institutions and plumbing already tuned-up for managing drought. In some ways we are better prepared. But it is like a hurricane on the East Coast: You can be prepared, but it is still a hurricane, and there will be damage.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.