This year's low water runoff 'shocked' state hyrdologists
While the snowpack was about 75% below average statewide for the 2020-2021 rain year, it was the lack of runoff that shocked state hydrologists. Water coming off the mountains dropped to about 20% of the forecast, an estimate that already took into account the low amount of snow, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
“The water never showed up in the reservoirs,” said David Rizzardo, a top hydrologist with the water department. “It went two places as far as anyone can tell. It soaked into the ground because the ground was so thirsty. Or if you had heavy winds, it wiped it off the surface.”
And it wasn’t enough to replenish forests stressed by years of winters with below-average rain.
This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
