California, just finished with its second consecutive year of drought, might well be facing a third. If so, state authorities may be forced to impose water rationing on farmers, homes and businesses.
With the rainy season well under way, early partial measurements indicate that the amount of water stored in the Sierra snowpack, the state`s natural reservoir, is higher than the amount at this time last year but well below average, said the state`s meteorologist, Elissa Lynn.
The deficit can be made up if January, February and March are full of big Pacific storms. But this week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the weather phenomenon known as La Niña, which is characterized by cooler waters in the western Pacific Ocean and drier conditions, had returned for the second consecutive year.
'The worry is that La Niña does again what it did last year,' Ms. Lynn said Wednesday, noting that the rainy season, which often lasts through April, ended in February last year. 'When we missed March and April, we lost 20 percent of the normal precipitation.'
In 2008, runoff from the Sierras was 57 percent of normal flows; in 2007, it was 53 percent of ...