Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Drought : Critically Dry or Super Dry?

California here we come... right back where we started from...

That little ditty was running through my head when I received the email this morning from Noah. In the email, was a single link to an NPR (National Public Radio) radio show this morning. Oh, Noah... such an appropriately inappropriate name for this message.

I turned the radio to the NPR morning show. A show about California's low snowpack and lack of rain presented several scenarios on what to expect this year. Agricultural, energy, riparian habitat and recreational concerns were all addressed in an hour long show.

One of our representatives from the whitewater industry was also there. The representative also feel that we will have boatable flows on the South Fork American River this year. We tend to agree with them, as we know that all the reservoirs above the whitewater section are currently at 70% or more.

With that said, we should have flows every weekend. Now, we can not know what the political agenda may prove this year, but, after May 1st' snowpack evaluation, we will know definitively how much water will flow.

Current storage (percent of average historical storage: (Dec '13)

 SFA:
1. Caples Lake: 124%
2. Slab Creek: 81%
3. Union Valley 94%
5. Ice House: 117%
MFA:
1.French Meadows 70% 
2.Hell Hole 81 %
3. Loon Lake 96%

Resources for the whitewater paddler:

American River : http://www.theamericanriver.com/rivers/american-river-watershed/

Reservoirs : http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action

Chris Shackleton's Dreamflows : http://www.dreamflows.com/graphs/day.075.php


W.E.T. River Trips on South Fork American



Thanks to W.E.T. River Trips Flickr for the photos!

No comments: