December dryness concerns ag experts

Concerns of a summer water shortage this year in California could be allayed by a wet January. Failing that, a dry December and January could be compensated by a wet February or March. But eventually, the months turn to summer, heat, and dry earth.

"It's looking pretty dry so far," said director of the Anderson Cottonwood Irrigation District Stan Wangberg.

Total water runoff into Lake Shasta as of Jan. 5 was measured at 734,000 acre feet, Wangberg said, adding that the figure is 53 percent of the 15-year average for Jan. 5.

"That's a few thousand acre feet less than was measured on Jan. 5 in 1977, which was our driest year on record," Wangberg said.

The ACID would experience a curtailment of its water rights this year if Lake Shasta inflow falls below 3,260,000 acre feet on April 1.

Water storage of Lake Shasta at December's end, which includes a snow pack estimate, was listed at 1,362,000 acre feet, according to a press release by California Department of Water Resources.

The ACID serves about 800 agricultural customers.

In Happy Valley, the Clear Creek Community Services District serves about 2,100 residential customers and 570 agricultural customers with water from Clear Creek, which is diverted from Whiskeytown Reservoir.

Although acknowledging the dry winter, district CEO Char Workman-Flowers said any suppositions about curtailment would have to wait.

"I won't have any idea until the Bureau of Reclamation makes their announcement on Jan. 23," Clear Creek Community Services District CEO Char Workman-Flowers said.

The cause of the dry weather is a "huge ridge of high pressure over the west coast," said Elissa Lynn, Senior Meteorologist of the Department of Water Resources. "It's like a huge mountain of dry air that makes it very hard for storms to make it to California."

Only 0.8 inches of precipitation has fallen in the northern Sierras, which drain into reservoirs in Lake Shasta, Oroville, and Fulsom as of Jan. 15, Lynn said.

"If there is no more precipitation this January, it will be the third dryest on record," she said.

Precipitation during the month of January is responsible for 18 percent of California's water year, she said.