The National Drought Mitigation Center on Thursday placed Santa Barbara County under the extreme drought designation, with portions of California falling under the worst-case scenario of exceptional drought.
The county’s extreme drought conditions, a designation noted as D3, leaves water users concerned with where their water will come from as the county’s main water source, Cachuma Lake, falls to 18 percent of its normal level.
In 2013, the county received less than half of its average rainfall and is at 14 percent of normal so far in 2014.
“A wet week will not do it,” said county Deputy Public Works Director Tom Fayram. “We need a wet season to get the watershed conditions ripe, then more rain to get runoff.”
The portions of California under the exceptional drought designation, or D4, received the worst drought category available, and it is being used for the first time in California since the U.S. Drought Monitor system began operation in 2000.
Both D3 and D4 conditions pose severe crop and pasture losses and water shortages, but D4 conditions are at an elevated severity. Sixty-seven percent of California now joins Santa Barbara County under the D3/D4 designation.
While Santa Maria and other parts of the county and the state got rain Thursday morning, it was merely enough to provide short-term relief. At less than a quarter-inch, the county needs a persistent pattern of mid-intensity rainfall to materially improve drought conditions, according to Santa Barbara County Fire Department Capt. David Sadecki. Based on the county’s three-month outlook, both Sadecki and Fayram are skeptical the county will overcome its drought conditions.
Cachuma Lake needs 10 to 15 inches of rain to generate runoff, according to Fayram.
“We need many, many more (inches) to actually put appreciable inflow into the lake,” he said.
The county is currently in its third year of drought, propelled forward by yet another winter of very little rain. Northern and Central California normally get 2 to 4 inches of rain per week during winter. Less than that and conditions will continue to dry throughout the year. Santa Maria received less than three-quarters of an inch between October 2013 and January 2014.
Sadecki also warns county residents that the ongoing drought conditions push the county to a high fire danger level as moisture levels remain critically low.
Source - http://syvnews.com/
USA - Santa Barbara County receives extreme drought designationThe National Drought Mitigation Center on Thursday placed Santa Barbara County under the extreme drought designation, with portions of California falling under the worst-case scenario of exceptional drought. The county’s extreme drought conditions, a designation noted as D3, leaves water users concerned with where their water will come from as the county’s main water source, Cachuma Lake, falls to 18 percent of its normal level. In 2013, the county received less than half of its average rainfall and is at 14 percent of normal so far in 2014.
