#tulare-lake

#tulare-lake

After 21 hours of talks, US and Iran did not reach a deal to end the war, as Vice President JD Vance said talks stalled after the US made a final offer pushing for stronger guarantees that Iran won't develop nuclear weapons.

Parts of Los Angeles will probably see rain after 11 p.m. Saturday, with scattered showers anticipated on Sunday afternoon before 2, and a potential for thunderstorms in some parts of the city.

Genetic sequencing has revealed that the state's nutria populations are most genetically similar to populations in Oregon, suggesting that California's current nutria invasion was the result of intentional reintroduction.

"San Jose was an agricultural wonderland. They called it the Valley of Heart's Delight, and most of it has been paved over and turned into high tech now. But this is a connection to our past."

If the lake level drops below 3,490 feet - termed the minimum power pool - the turbines that generate electricity have to be shut down. When the water level reaches critically low thresholds, air is sucked down like a whirlpool into the penstocks, forming explosive bubbles which can cause massive failure inside the dam.

For 2025, there was good news and bad news: overall, these areas were visited 323 million times over the course of the year. That's the good news; the bad news is that this figure was down ever so slightly - specifically, 2.7% - from a record-setting 2024.

The Colorado River is an interconnected system, sustained by Rocky Mountain snowpack, rainfall and groundwater. It is fragile, and under increasing stress. Two and a half decades into this century, the river that built the modern West has 20% less water flowing through it than it did on average in the last century. As heat and drought intensify, so do the stakes: Failure to recognize the severity of changing conditions, managing the river in parts without considering needs of the whole and inadequate planning for long-term shortages put the future of all the basin at risk.

The largest share, $235 million, will be used to rehabilitate the Delta-Mendota Canal, which carries water to farmlands. An additional $200 million will help continue repairs on the Friant-Kern Canal, another key conduit for water in the valley. Sinking ground, an effect of heavy groundwater pumping, has damaged segments of the Friant-Kern Canal and reduced its capacity.

SWE is the most important metric for all of our water resources. It's the metric that we deal with the most and the one that the entirety of the snow research and operations community is working to get right. So, seeing an increase in SWE like that, even if it's from mid-winter rain, is a great thing because that means we have more water stored in the snowpack moving forward.

Western water law is based on the prior appropriation doctrine, which gives the first entity to make "beneficial use" of water the right to keep on using that amount, even if that means that upstream "junior" users' spigots will get shut off. By the early 1900s, a rapidly growing California was enthusiastically diverting the Colorado River, with huge irrigation districts gobbling up the senior water rights.

The question of how to protect fish and the ecological health of rivers that feed California's largest estuary is generating heated debate in a series of hearings in Sacramento, as state officials try to gain support for a plan that has been years in the making. "I am passionate that this is the pathway to recover fish," said state Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. "This is the paradigm we need: collaborative, adaptive management versus conflict and litigation."

The surge of water, more than 22,400 gallons a second, plunged from the foot of Warm Springs Dam, launching a fine mist above. That was the spectacle of abundance last week at Lake Sonoma, the North Bay's largest reservoir, where the U.S. Army Corps was releasing what dam managers call an "oversupply" - the welcome product of heavy runoff from recent storms.

"A dry January, which is historically the wettest month of the year in California, has now eroded the gains made at the start of the year and forecasts currently show no major precipitation in the next two weeks," California Department of Weather Resources spokesperson Jason Ince wrote in a Jan. 30 news release. The first month of the year certainly left the area warmer and drier than usual, weather officials confirmed.

From Highway 101 to Monterey Road, traffic in Silicon Valley has become deadly for wildlife trying to move between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range. Now, a major project is underway to connect preserved open spaces in the South Bay and reduce dangerous crashes for drivers. Monterey Road is a death trap, said Fraser Shilling, a researcher at UC Davis who studies how wildlife interacts with roads.