"We warned at the start of ZetaTalk, in 1995, thatunpredictable weather extremes, switching about from drought to deluge,would occur and increase on a lineal basis up until the pole shift. Where this occurred steadily, it has only recently become undeniable. ZetaTalk, and only ZetaTalk, warned of these weather changes, at that early date. Our early warnings spoke to the issue of global heating from the core outward, hardly Global Warming, a surface or atmospheric issue, but caused by consternation in the core. Affected by the approach of Planet X, which was by then starting to zoom rapidly toward the inner solar system for its periodic passage, the core was churning, melting the permafrost and glaciers and riling up volcanoes. When the passage did not occur as expected in 2003 because Planet X had stalled in the inner solar system, we explained the increasing weather irregularities in the context of the global wobble that had ensued - weather wobbles where the Earth is suddenly forced under air masses, churning them. This evolved by 2005 into a looping jet stream, loops breaking away and turning like a tornado to affect the air masses underneath. Meanwhile, on Planet Earth, droughts had become more intractable and deluges positively frightening, temperature swings bringing snow in summer in the tropics and searing heat in Artic regions, with the violence of storms increasing in number and ferocity."
The wobble seems to have changed, as the temperature in Europe suddenly plunged after being like an early Spring, Alaska has its coldest temps ever while the US and much of Canada is having an extremely mild winter. India went from fatal cold spell to balmy again. Has the Earth changed position vs a vs Planet X to cause this?[and from another]Bitter cold records broken in Alaska - all time coldest record nearly broken, but Murphy's Law intervenes[Jan 30]http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/30/bitter-cold-records-broken-in-alaskaJim River, AK closed in on the all time record coldest temperature of -80°F set in 1971, which is not only the Alaska all-time record, but the record for the entire United States. Unfortunately, it seems the battery died in the weather station just at the critical moment. While the continental USA has a mild winter and has set a number of high temperature records in the last week and pundits ponder whether they will be blaming the dreaded "global warming" for those temperatures, Alaska and Canada have been suffering through some of the coldest temperatures on record during the last week.
There has been no change in the wobble pattern, the wobble has merely become more severe. Nancy noted a Figure 8 format when the Earth wobble first became noticeable, in early 2005, after Planet X moved into the inner solar system at the end of 2003. The Figure 8 shifted along to the east a bit on the globe between 2005 and 2009, (the last time Nancy took its measure) as Planet X came closer to the Earth, encountering the magnetic N Pole with a violent push earlier in the day. But the pattern of the Figure 8 remained essentially the same. So what changed recently that the weather patterns became noticeably different in late January, 2012?
The N Pole is pushed away when it comes over the horizon, when the noon Sun is centered over the Pacific. This regularly puts Alaska under colder air, with less sunlight, and thus the historically low temps there this January, 2012 as the wobble has gotten stronger. But by the time the Sun is positioned over India, the N Pole has swung during the Figure 8 so the globe tilts, and this tilt is visible in the weather maps from Asia. The tilt has forced the globe under the hot air closer to the Equator, warming the land along a discernable tilt demarcation line.
The next loop of the Figure 8 swings the globe so that the N Pole moves in the other direction, putting the globe again at a tilt but this time in the other direction. This tilt is discernable in weather maps of Europe, again along a diagonal line. Depending upon air pressure and temperature differences, the weather on either side of this diagonal line may be suddenly warm or suddenly cold. The tilt and diagonal line lingers to affect much of the US and Canada, but the Figure 8 changes at this point to be an up and down motion, pulling the geographic N Pole south so the US is experiencing a warmer than expected winter under a stronger Sun. Then the cycle repeats, with the magnetic N Pole of Earth pushed violently away again as the Sun is positioned over the Pacific.
Would the Zetas be able to let us know what is causing the early break-up of the Arctic Ice, the ice seems to have taken on a swirling pattern at the same time, would this be wobble related?[and from another]http://www.vancouversun.com/news/national/Canada+Arctic+cracks+spec... The ice in Canada’s western Arctic ripped open in a massive “fracturing event” this spring that spread like a wave across 1,000 kilometres of the Beaufort Sea. Huge leads of water – some more than 500 kilometres long and as much as 70 kilometres across – opened up from Alaska to Canada’s Arctic islands as the massive ice sheet cracked as it was pushed around by strong winds and currents. It took just seven days for the fractures to progress across the entire area from west to east.[and from another]http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=80752&src=iot... A high-pressure weather system was parked over the region, producing warmer temperatures and winds that flowed in a southwesterly direction. That fueled the Beaufort Gyre, a wind-driven ocean current that flows clockwise. The gyre was the key force pulling pieces of ice west past Point Barrow, the northern nub of Alaska that protrudes into the Beaufort Sea.
The Figure 8 formed by the N Pole during the daily Earth wobble has shifted somewhat to the East, due to Planet X positioned more to the right of the Earth during its approach. This was anticipated, and well described in ZetaTalk, the Earth crowding to the left in the cup to escape the approach of Planet X, so the angle between these two planets would change slightly. This shift of the Figure 8 to the East is due to the push against the Earth’s magnetic N Pole occurring sooner each day than prior. Thus instead of occurring when the Sun is high over the Pacific, over New Zealand, it is now occurring when the Sun is high over Alaska. All the wobble points have shifted eastward accordingly.
This has brought a lingering Winter to the western US, and a changed sloshing pattern to the Arctic waters. Instead of Pacific waters being pushed through the Bering Straits into the Arctic when the polar push occurs, the wobble is swinging the Arctic to the right, and then later to the left, creating a circular motion in the waters trapped in the Arctic. Since the Earth rotates counterclockwise, the motion also takes this path. This is yet another piece of evidence that the establishment is hard pressed to explain. They are attempting to ascribe this to high pressure and wind, all of which are not new to the Arctic, but this circular early breakup of ice in the Arctic is new.
A severe wave of bad weather yesterday lashed several southern areas of Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula, with heavy rain, torrential character, accompanied by strong winds, NE, N-NE and North, who are over 70 -80 km / h gusts. The mix of heavy rain and strong winds has reaped considerable damage and many hardships in many cities in southern Ukraine. The strong wave of bad weather was produced by the passage of a young and deep extratropical cyclone of 995 hPa on the Black Sea, and in the 24-36 hours before it was developed on the western sector of the Black Sea, taking a remarkable development, with an intense frontogenesis in the lower layers.
The interaction between an extended advection of warm air source sub-tropical continental un'avvezione of very cold air flowed towards the Carpathian region and the western area of the Black Sea, has woven the ideal conditions for the development of a deep cyclogenesis on the Black Sea Basin
But strong winds, exceeding the threshold of the storm, they also swept the remaining Oblast 'southern Ukraine, from Dnipropetrovsk to the coastal city of Mariupol', Sea of Azov, gusting to N-NE and NE until beyond 70 km / h
Comment by jorge namour on April 6, 2015 at 5:31pm
Easter Monday as San Silvestro, polar temperatures: -15 ° C to Predazzo, -13 ° C in Livigno [DATA] - ITALY
Monday, April 6, 2015
Temperatures of nearly 10 ° C lower than the average of April, very cold especially in the center / north but in the next two days the mercury will drop further
Very cold this morning throughout Italy, especially in the center / north where the weather is sunny but cold and windy as if we were in the middle of winter
Frosts early in the Po Valley with -1 ° C to Malpensa and other locations subzero between Piedmont, Lombardy and Veneto. Freezing cold on the reliefs with -15.4 ° C in Predazzo, -15.3 ° C to Pale di San Martino, -14.0 ° C in Ortisei, -13.7 ° C in Peio, -12.6 ° C Livigno, -12.3 ° C to Grigna, -12.2 ° C in Cortina d'Ampezzo, -12.1 ° C in Pinzolo, -11.4 ° C to Passo del Tonale, -10.3 ° C La Thuile, -9.5 ° C to Monte Cimon, -9.2 ° C at the Refuge Hut, -8.8 ° C to Croce Arcana, -8.7 ° C at Mount Elbow.
Instead these minimum temperatures in the main: 0 ° C to Bologna and Verona, + 1 ° C in Padua, Vicenza, Cuneo, Belluno, Cremona, Varese, Modena, Mantua, Bolzano and Campobasso, + 2 ° C in Parma,
Temperatures will fall again tomorrow and Wednesday, which will be the two coldest days, with extensive frost in the center / north from the plains.
Interesting read on Alaska's record warmth that coincides with the Zeta's explanation of the polar wobble (global warming disinfo removed).
Baked Alaska (Mar 11)
Earlier this winter, Monica Zappa packed up her crew of Alaskan sled dogs and headed SOUTH, in search of snow. "We haven't been able to train where we live for two months," she told me.
Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, which Zappa calls home, was practically tropical this winter. Rick Thoman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Alaska, has been dumbfounded. "Homer, Alaska, keeps setting record after record, and I keep looking at the data like, Has the temperature sensor gone out or something?"
Something does seem to be going on in Alaska. Last fall, a skipjack tuna, which is more likely to be found in the Galápagos than near a glacier, was caught about 150 miles southeast of Anchorage, not far from the Kenai. A few weeks ago, race organizers had to truck in snow to the ceremonial Iditarod start line in Anchorage.
This February was the most extreme on record in the Lower 48, and it marked the first time that two large sections of territory (each more than 30 percent of the country) experienced both exceptional cold and exceptional warmth in the same month, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. All-time records were set for the coldest month in dozens of Eastern cities, with Boston racking up more snow than the peaks of California's Sierra Nevada. A single January storm in Boston produced more snow than Anchorage saw all winter.
This year's Iditarod was rerouted — twice — because of the warm weather. The race traditionally starts in Anchorage, which had near-record-low snowfall this winter. The city was without a single significant snowstorm between October and late January, so race organizers decided to move the start from the Anchorage area 360 miles north to Fairbanks. But when the Chena River, which was supposed to be part of the new route's first few miles, failed to sufficiently freeze, the starting point had to move again, to another location in Fairbanks.
On March 9, Zappa set out with her dogs on the 1,000-mile race across Alaska as one of 78 mushers in this year's Iditarod. For most of the winter, the weather across the interior of the state had been abnormally warm. To train, many teams of dogs and their owners had to travel, often "outside" — away from Alaska. Zappa ended up going to the mountains of Wyoming.
A recent study said that Alaska's rivers and melting glaciers are now outputting more water than the Mississippi River. Last year was Alaska's warmest on record, and the warm weather has continued right on into 2015. This winter, Anchorage essentially transformed into a less sunny version of Seattle. As of March 9, the city had received less than one-third of its normal amount of snow. In its place? Rain. Lots of rain. In fact, schools in the Anchorage area are now more likely to cancel school because of rain and street flooding than because of cold and snow.
The Pacific Ocean near Alaska has been record-warm for months now. This year is off to a record-wet start in Juneau. Kodiak experienced its warmest winter on record. A sudden burst of ocean warmth has affected statewide weather before, but this time feels different, residents say. In late February, National Weather Service employees spotted thundersnow in Nome — a city just 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle. "As far as I know, that's unprecedented,"Thoman told me. Thunderstorms of any kind require a level of atmospheric energy that's rarely present in cold climates. To get that outside of the summer is incredibly rare everywhere, let alone in Alaska.
For the past few winters, shifts in the jet stream have brought surges of tropical moisture toward southern Alaska via potent atmospheric rivers. This weather pattern has endured so long, it's even earned its own name: the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge. The persistent area of high pressure stretching from Alaska to California has shunted wintertime warmth and moisture northward into the Arctic while the eastern half of the continent is plunged into a deep freeze, polar-vortex style.
The warm water is making its way north into the Arctic Ocean, too, where as of early March, sea ice levels were at their record lowest for the date.
The city of Anchorage has saved an estimated $1 million on snow removal this year and is instead pouring the money into fixing potholes and other backlogged maintenance issues. But getting around the rest of the state hasn't been so easy.
There are few roads in rural Alaska, so winter travel is often done by snowmobiles over frozen rivers. Not this year. Warm temperatures in February led to thin ice and open water in the southwest part of the state near Galena and Bethel. David Hulen, managing editor for the Alaska Dispatch News in Anchorage, has spent nearly 30 years in the state. He says the freeze-thaw cycle is out of whack, "changing the nature of the place." Usually, things freeze in the fall and unfreeze in the spring; this winter, they've seen a nearly constant back and forth between freezing and thawing.
Those are city problems. Along the state's west coast, some native coastal villages are facing an existential threat as sea levels rise. Earlier this winter, Washington Post climate reporter Chris Mooney visited Kivalina, one of the six villages considering plans to relocate.
For now, the most visible change is still in the shifting habitats of the fish, birds, trees, and animals. Permafrost still covers 85 percent of the state, but "almost everywhere, the depth of the active layer is increasing over the last few decades," said Thoman. Since the active layer — the zone of soil above the permafrost that thaws out each summer — now penetrates deeper down, that means landforms are shifting, lakes are draining, and new forests are springing up.
"This is a result of the Polar Push, where the magnetic N Pole of Earth is shoved away daily when it comes up over the horizon to face the Sun and the approaching Planet X, aka Nibiru. The magnetic N Pole of Earth is now positioned over eastern Siberia, which is bitterly cold while Norway and Sweden, just as far north, are warm. The magnetic N Pole of Earth receives less sunlight, and as the globe then leans to the right the northeastern part of N America likewise is cold. The lean to the left, next in the Figure 8 wobble, gives Europe more sunlight while the magnetic N Pole is on the far side of the globe, as does the bounce back from the Polar Push which gives Alaska its warm temps."
Sudden, Massive Hailstorm Kills 3, Injures 150 in India (Apr 4)
3 people were killed and 150 people have been injured due to hailstorms in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh yesterday evening.
"The number of injured is high due to sudden, massive hailstorms," ADM Dhirendra Sachan said.
"Ten cattle were killed and the majority of crops were destroyed in the hailstorm. Actual loss of the farmers has to be assessed," he said.
In Nagla Imam Khan area of Reethora village in Mathura, two persons including a child were killed when their house collapsed on Friday night due to heavy rains.
"While a 30-year-old woman and an eight-year-old child succumbed to injuries on the spot, six people who were injured were rushed to a private hospital in Kosi Kalan town," Mr Sachan said.
'Like a hurricane': Floods Swamp Louisville, Forces 160+ Water Recues (Apr 3)
Simone Wester woke up Friday to the sight of boats carting away her neighbors as torrential rains swamped portions of Kentucky's largest city, forcing emergency crews to navigate flooded neighborhoods and make more than 160 rescues.
"It looked like a hurricane struck, said Wester, whose apartment complex was surrounded by floodwaters, waist-deep in some places. "I didn't know what to do."
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said more than 160 water rescues had been made.
Five to 7 inches of rain fell overnight in the Louisville area, mainly along and just south of the Interstate 64 corridor, National Weather Service forecaster Brian Schoettmer said. By comparison, just over 4½ inches of rain had been recorded at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport as of 8 a.m.
The torrential rain closed portions of roads in multiple Kentucky counties Friday morning.
Some side streets near the University of Louisville were completely under water, and an overpass was flooded almost to its top, authorities said.
As storms pushed through the South and Midwest, severe thunderstorms were blamed for the death of a woman who was camping with her family at Natural Bridge State Resort Park in eastern Kentucky.
Catherine Carlson, 45, was killed and her husband was injured when a large tree limb fell on their tent, said Powell County Coroner Hondo Hearne. Their three children didn't appear to be injured, he said.
The campground where the family was staying was evacuated due to flash flooding, said Gil Lawson, a spokesman for the state Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet. The campground is near a stream, and about 15 campsites were occupied when the flood hit, he said.
Meanwhile thousands of people in south central Kansas lost power after winds that reached nearly 90 mph downed trees and damaged buildings overnight and early Friday.
No deaths were reported but six people were injured, emergency management officials said. Several buildings were damaged in Newton and the Jabara Airport in Wichita was closed Friday morning because of storm debris on the airfield.
In Oklahoma, the National Weather Service plans to send a survey team to Ottawa County to investigate reports of a tornado touchdown.
The possible tornado near Afton was part of a storm system that moved through northeastern Oklahoma and northwestern Arkansas late Thursday and early Friday.
In Kentucky, Powell County received 4 inches of rain, and other eastern areas of the state had 3-4 inches, said National Weather Service meteorologist Tony Edwards.
A northern Kentucky school bus with 16 students aboard was stranded for about three hours by floodwaters that covered roads to schools. Numerous roads in northeastern Kentucky were under water.
The heavy rains in Kentucky started Thursday and continued Friday. Some areas received 1 to 2 inches per hour, said weather service meteorologist Brian Schoettmer. Some of the heaviest rains occurred along or just south of the Interstate 64 corridor, he said.
"We had several waves of rain that rode along the same path," he said.
Some cars were submerged by high water on roads next to the University of Louisville's main campus, said school spokesman Mark Hebert. A few campus buildings had water in the basements, he said. Early classes were canceled Friday, but classes resumed by midmorning, he said.
Bill Mattingly, assistant chief of the Okolona Fire Protection District, said floodwaters started pouring into first-floor apartments overnight.
Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville canceled classes Friday.
Emergency supplies and generators sent to hamlet of Pangnirtung that is mostly in the dark
CBC NewsPosted: Apr 02, 2015 7:06 AM CT Last Updated: Apr 02, 2015 10:46 PM CT
A fire at the local power plant has led to a community-wide power outage in the Nunavut community of Pangnirtung. (Submitted by David Kilabuk)
Qulliq Energy Corp, the power corporation for Nunavut, said late Thursday partial power has been restored to Pangnirtung.
QEC asked residents to conserve power for basic necessities as it sought to rotate power in Pangnirtung on two-hour intervals, hoping to increase the time increment as quickly as possible to four hours.
The Northwest Territories Power Corporation airlifted two mobile generators after the cause of the outage that affected the entire community of 1,400, a fire early Thursday at the local power plant.
"Loss of power in the community, in the North, in the winter time is a very serious situation," said Ed Zebedee, the territory's director of protection services in Iqaluit. The community relies entirely on the power plant that generates electricity from diesel fuel.
Temperatures were forecast to hit a low of -18 C overnight Thursday with a high of -13 C expected Friday.
Pangnirtung, which has a population of 1,400, is the gateway to Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island. (CBC)
An emergency warming shelter has been opened at Attagoyuk Ilisavik School, where there is backup power. A few other buildings in the community also have backup power, but the rest are cold and dark.
"We opened the warming shelters very early this morning and people are starting to go there," Zebedee said. "We talked to the hamlet and they are getting food from the local stores so they can start feeding people."
The Nunavut government is now working towards getting charter flights to the community to bring people with high-risk health issues, such as those who may be on oxygen generators, to Iqaluit.
The government also worked with the public health agency in Ottawa to get cots, blankets and pillows, which will be flown into Pangnirtung in case residents have to sleep in the school.
"We understand the impacts of being without power in Canada's North and are pleased to be able to assist our neighbouring utility," said Emanuel DaRosa, president and CEO of the power corporation. "It's the least we can do in this crisis situation."
Phone services degrading
Zebedee said he spoke with NorthwesTel this morning and its cellphone system "looks like it has completely failed right now."
A media advisory from NorthwesTel said long distance and data services in Pangnirtung were expected to continue to degrade as backup batteries deplete, but its central office in the community currently has a stable power supply, which should allow local calling to continue to function.
"We have a bunch of satellite phones in the community with various government agencies and then we also have a couple with the hamlet," Zebedee said. "We have a response kit ready to go in with hand-held radios so that people can communicate between hamlet staff, bylaw officers, water truck people."
Members of the Canadian Rangers met Thursday morning to discuss the situation and went door-to-door to check on households, as well as warning people about potential dangers in their homes, such as carbon monoxide poisoning from using camping stoves or outdoor heating appliances indoors.
Fire began early in morning
The fire at the power plant began at about 1:30 a.m. ET and crews were able to extinguish it.
Ezra Arnakaq, who lives in the community, said there was a lot of damage to the power plant.
"One of the exhaust vents has fallen in part way and there is extensive damage in there," he said.
Residents of Pangnirtung are being asked to run taps regularly to ensure their pipes don't freeze, but to otherwise conserve water.
Comment by jorge namour on April 2, 2015 at 5:15pm
Riyadh schools forced to close due to severe sandstorm - SAUDI ARABIA STORM «Dark»
All schools in the Riyadh region, including the ones run by expat communities, will remain closed Thursday. The Education Department announced the suspension of schools on April 2 because of a major sandstorm that hit Riyadh on Wednesday.
A ferocious sandstorm blanketed the region hampering visibility and causing traffic snarls on many roads and highways. Several shops in the region downed their shutters early. The Civil Defense has advised all residents in the Riyadh region to avoid going out during the dusty weather.
Significant climate news was playing out in Antarctica, where two climate stations registered ominous new potential measurements of accelerating climate change.
A weather station on the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula recorded what may be the highest temperature ever on the continent, while a separate study published in the journal Science found that the losses of ice shelf volume in the western Antarctic had increased by 70% in the last decade.
Helen A Fricker of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, a co-author of the Science report, said that there was not necessarily a correlation between recent temperature fluctuations and disappearing ice.
“While it is fair to say that we’re seeing the ice shelves responding to climate change, we don’t believe there is enough evidence to directly relate recent ice shelf losses specifically to changes in global temperature,” Fricker said in an interview with Reuters.
What was incontestable were the unprecedentedly high temperature readings on the Antarctic ice mass.
The potential Antarctica record high of 63.5F (17.5C) was recorded on 24 March at the Esperanza Base, just south of the southern tip of Argentina. The reading, first noted on the Weather Underground blog, came one day after a nearby weather station, at Marambio Base, saw a record high of its own, at 63.3F (17.4C).
By any measure, the Esperanza reading this week was unusual. The previous record high at the base, of 62.7F (17.1C), was recorded in 1961.
PHILLIPSStanding in a dry brown meadow that typically would be buried in snow this time of year, Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday ordered the first mandatory water cutbacks in California history, a directive that will affect cities and towns statewide.
With new measurements showing the state’s mountain snowpack at a record low, officials said California’s drought is entering uncharted territory and certain to extend into a fourth straight year. As a result, Brown issued sweeping new directives to reduce water consumption by state residents, including a mandatory 25 percent cut in urban water use.
On Wednesday, Brown attended a routine snow survey at 6,800 feet in the Sierra Nevada, near Echo Summit on Highway 50 along the road to Lake Tahoe. The April 1 survey is an annual ritual, marking the end of the winter season, in which automated sensors and technicians in the field strive to measure how much water the state’s farms and cities will receive from snowmelt.
The measurements showed the snowpack at just 5 percent of average for April 1, well below the previous record low of 25 percent, which was reached last year and in 1977.
California’s mountain snowpack is crucial to determining summer supplies, normally accounting for at least 30 percent of total fresh water available statewide. The poor snowpack means California reservoirs likely already have reached peak storage and will receive little additional runoff from snowmelt, an unusual situation.
“We’re standing on dry grass, and we should be standing in five feet of snow,” Brown said. “We’re in an historic drought, and that demands unprecedented action.”
Brown’s executive order directs California’s more than 3,000 urban water providers to collectively cut their water use by 25 percent compared with 2013. The State Water Resources Control Board is expected to impose the new restrictions by mid-May, setting a different target for each agency depending on how much water its customers use per capita and conservation progress since last year.
With 2015 opening with some of the driest weather in California history, Brown has faced increasing pressure to act on the drought. His call last year for residents to voluntarily reduce their water use by 20 percent statewide resulted in increased conservation, but ultimately fell short. Water agencies collectively managed to meet this target only once out of the last eight months.
“I called for 20 percent voluntary, and we’re going to get more like 9 percent,” Brown said. “That’s not enough.”
The new goals will be mandatory. Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the water board, said her agency will decide next month exactly what tools it will wield to ensure compliance. But she suggested water agencies that don’t meet their targets are likely to face fines.
“Enforcement is definitely on deck in this next phase,” she said.
Brown’s directive calls on the state to create financial incentives for homeowners to replace thirsty lawns with drought tolerant landscape, as well as rebates for new water-efficient appliances. But he said local water agencies also might issue cease-and-desist orders on water users if they fail to meet the conservation order.
“I would hope that we don’t see this in some punitive way, but that we see the challenge,” Brown said. “(The) reality is that the climate is getting warmer, the weather is getting more extreme and unpredictable, and we have to become more resilient, more efficient and more innovative. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
In the Sacramento region, water agencies overall cut water usage per capita by about 18 percent from the summer of 2013 to the summer of 2014, according to a Bee review of data reported to the state. That means many already are close to the 25 percent cut mandated by Gov. Brown.
However, the capital region still guzzles far more than most other parts of the state. On average. Sacramento area residents used about 190 gallons per person per day between June and September 2014, compared to an average of about 131 gallons per person per day in the rest of the state.
Among the other measures in the governor’s order:
▪ A program to replace 50 million square feet of residential lawns statewide with drought-tolerant plants, equal to more than 800 football fields.
▪ A new statewide consumer rebate program to subsidize installation of water efficient appliances, such as toilets and washing machines.
▪ A ban on watering ornamental lawns on public street medians.
▪ A ban on irrigating yards in new housing developments unless the water is recycled or drip irrigation is used.
▪ Financial assistance for families forced to find new housing because they have run out of potable water.
“People should realize we’re in a new era,” Brown said. “The idea of your nice little green grass getting lots of water every day, that’s going to be a thing of the past.”
Brown’s order requires water agencies that service agricultural areas to develop drought management plans, with increased reporting on water supply and use. But unlike cities, farms will face no conservation targets, mandatory or otherwise.
Agriculture consumes nearly 80 percent of the state’s “developed” water supply.
Marcus said agricultural water agencies already have had their surface water allocations slashed considerably. In the case of farmers dependent on the federal Central Valley Project, many have been told they will receive no water. The State Water Project, which is operated by DWR and also serves some farms, plans to deliver 20 percent of typical contract amounts.
Craig Wilson, former Delta watermaster at the state water board, is among those saying the state should be doing more to force conservation on farmers. He noted that many farmers enjoy so-called “senior” water rights, which have not been curtailed at all. Many also rely on groundwater, which has been pumped to unprecedented lows in some parts of the state.
Brown’s order requires groundwater users to expand or speed up their reports of water use, but does not restrict pumping.
“Ag is where the water is,” Wilson said. “Come up with a plan to cut their water use by 10 percent, 20 percent. I wouldn’t dictate to the farmers how to do it, but tell them to give us the plan that shows how you’re going to do it.”
Officials at urban water agencies mostly cheered Brown’s announcement, saying it will help keep the public focused on conservation as the drought worsens.
“I think he’s upping the ante, and I think it’s important that he does,” said Kevin Wattier, general manager of the Long Beach Water Agency. “You look at what’s happened with this snowpack and we need to step it up.”
Last week, Brown signed a $1.1 billion drought relief and flood protection package, then went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to address the crisis for a national audience. Brown has stopped short of attributing the drought to climate change but said it is the kind of event that climate change is making “absolutely inevitable in the coming years and decades.”
Two of the first three months of this year, January and March, were the driest in more than 100 years. Many areas of the state were also hotter than average during these months, shattering heat records in many locations, including Sacramento.
A few miles down Highway 50 from the meadow where the snowpack measurement took place, the only evidence of winter was a patch of snow that could be seen on a hilltop from the window of Strawberry Station, a general store.
“It’s pretty dire,” said David Schlosser, who owns the store with his wife, Jenifer. “It looks like August.”
Schlosser said families heading to the mountains for winter vacations this year stopped and asked how far they had to continue to find snow.
“We would say, ‘Denver,’” he said.
Jenifer Schlosser said that during a major drought in the late 1970s, when Brown was governor before, residents trusted dry years were cyclical and would come to an end.
“Now, with all the other changes – climate change – people are like, ‘Oh, this could be serious.’”
At the snowpack measurement, Brown was asked about his own conservation efforts.
“First of all, my own water use is relatively limited, I must say,” Brown said. “We’re very careful of what we’re doing – turning off that faucet a little quicker, getting out of the shower a little faster, and not flushing the toilet every time.”
New mandatory restrictions
For the first time in history, a California governor has ordered mandatory statewide water cutbacks. Here are some of the highlights from Gov. Brown’s executive order.
▪ Requires the State Water Resources Control Board to impose restrictions that will cut statewide urban water use 25 percent compared with 2013.
▪ Calls for urban water agencies to create rate structures, fees and penalties that encourage residents to use less water.
▪ Requires all newly constructed homes and buildings to use drip irrigation or microspray systems to water landscape.
▪ Creates a statewide initiative to get California residents collectively to replace 50 million square feet of lawns with drought tolerant landscape.
▪ Creates a statewide rebate program to encourage residents to buy new water-efficient appliances.
▪ Requires agricultural water suppliers to submit detailed drought management plans.
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