Eleven locations are expected to reach the flood stage, although no “danger stage” flooding is anticipated, according to Jeremy Arrich, deputy director of the Division of Flood Management with the Department of Water Resources.

Rivers in the San Joaquin Valley are forecast to flood today or Saturday. We’re now back into wet,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the Department of Water Resources. “Water management in California is complicated, and it’s made even more complex during these challenging climate conditions where we see swings between very, very dry, very, very wet, back to dry.

They must strike a balance between holding as much water in storage, as long as they can, while maintaining room in reservoirs for more water later in the season. The storms have created a tricky situation for officials who manage state and federal reservoirs in California, since they have to juggle the risk of flooding Central Valley communities with the risk of letting too much water go from reservoirs. So what’s the downside? These same storms are prematurely melting a deep and valuable snowpack that ideally would last later into the spring and summer, when farmers and cities need water the most. The increased flows in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta could help endangered salmon migrate to the ocean. Releasing the water will make room for the storm’s water and melted snow, prevent the reservoirs from flooding local communities - and send more water downstream, into San Francisco Bay.

The expected surge of mountain runoff forced state officials on Wednesday to open the “floodgates” of Lake Oroville and other large reservoirs that store water for millions of Southern Californians and Central Valley farms. We've tried to find the forecast points that best reflect these mountain passes, but the elevation of the forecast will not exactly match the pass elevation.Two winters’ worth of snow has already fallen in the Sierra Nevada since Christmas, pulling California from the depths of extreme drought into one of its wettest winters in memory.īut as a series of tropical storms slams the state, that bounty has become a flood risk as warm rains fall on the state’s record snowpack, causing rapid melting and jeopardizing Central Valley towns still soggy from January’s deluges. *Please note the pass elevations are for the highway elevations.

Weather underground ukiah