drought

As Pacific Ocean temperatures continue to warm and trade winds shift, federal scientists now say that the El Niño weather event that’s emerging could be one of the strongest on record.

With illegal and unattended campfires the cause of over 90% of wildfires in the Lake Tahoe Basin, new fire restrictions go into place on July 1, 2015. Campfires and charcoal barbecues will be restricted to designated recreation sites, and other fire-related activities are prohibited until the end of fire season.

“Increased fire danger due to the ongoing drought combined with warmer and dryer weather is a big concern for the basin," said U.S. Forest Service fire management officer, Kit Bailey. "Fire restrictions help reduce the possibility of human caused fires.”

Fire pits. The outdoor means to a perfect s'more and good conversation around a fire on a cool summer evening. But, in the midst of a drought are they safe? Are they legal when fire restrictions are in place?

There are three fire district jurisdictions just in South Lake Tahoe, along with the U.S. Forest Service, and they all have different rules concerning the backyard fire pit. One thing they all do share is for residents and visitors to be smart about fire and to not be careless.

Winds hampered firefighting efforts at the lightening caused Saddle Fire on Saturday. As of 6 p.m., the fire has burned 1,480 acres in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, halfway between Redding and Eureka, California.

866 personnel are fighting the fire which is now 15% contained.

Firefighters have been protecting the homes along County Road 311, and as of June 13, no structures have been burned.

Challenges to firefighters include a heavy component of dead and down vegetation (from previous fires), hot, dry conditions, steep terrain, and ongoing drought.

Chances of an El Niño bringing a badly needed wet winter to California have gone up, the National Weather Service said Thursday.

According to scientists, there’s a better than 90 percent chance the weather pattern often associated with plentiful rain will hit in the fall, and an 85 percent chance it will hang around through the end of the year.

Those predictions are up from May, when scientists said an El Niño — which involves the warming of tropical waters in the Pacific — had an 80 percent chance of sticking around into the winter.

The Heavenly Village Summer Concert Series got underway last weekend. This annual series of live music takes place every Friday and Saturday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend. The stage rotates around the village from in front of Starbucks and Basecamp Pizza, to the fountain and in front along Highway 50.

Here is the lineup:

Friday, 5/29 - Liquid Cactus | Funk/Rock
Saturday, 5/30 - Paige & Fearless Kin | Bluegrass/Acoustic

Friday, 6/5 - Electric Jimmys | Classic Rock/Grateful Dead Trib
Saturday, 6/6 - Tracorum | Classic/Jam Rock

Recent rains have Lake Tahoe lapping at its natural rim and while it may stay there for a time, the lake should soon start dropping again during this year of drought.

Thursday, the lake level was officially measured at just a few hundredths of an inch before its rim but a trickle of water flowed from the lake and toward the Truckee River. Similar conditions have existed since Monday, the first time the lake was so high since dropping below the rim last October.

“It’s basically at the rim,” said Federal Water Master Chad Blanchard. “Right now it’s at its peak that we’ve seen.”

As the severe drought in California continues, the following water restrictions and provisions of the South Tahoe Public Utility District Water Conservation Program and the California State Water Resources Control Board Emergency Water Conservation Regulation are mandatory to conserve water resources. Failure to comply may result in a fine.

RESTRICTIONS
• Outdoor irrigation may only occur between the hours of 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and is limited to 20 minutes per zone per day, on your designated watering days. Drip or micro irrigation is exempt from this requirement;

Even as campers pour in to the El Dorado National Forest for the Memorial Day weekend, dangers remain.

Several members of a group of campers from Sacramento didn't even realize they were near the King Fire's burn zone as they set up tents at the Ponderosa Cove Campsite.

Fortunately, one camper did understand the risk from burned trees and branches that can still fall on unsuspecting hikers.

Douglas County homeowners have an opportunity to compost their residential yard waste early this fire season when TDFPD hosts a kickoff event for Compost Your Combustibles with coffee and donuts on Saturday, May 23 at 9am. The free annual recycling program which historically has started on Memorial Day Weekend is now open at Heavenly Mountain Resort’s Boulder Lodge Parking Lot.

It has been a wet May in South Lake Tahoe and the surrounding area, but, unfortunately, it has made little impact on the long term drought.

Precipitation has been just above normal for the month of May, but the year-to-date figures are still falling shy of average.

On the map pictured here, the purple areas are now 200%-800% above average.

The forecast through Memorial Day from the National Weather Service shows a chance of rain every day:

Washoe Lake is dry.

With almost all of the 11 streams feeding the lake between Reno and Carson City reduced to a trickle over the past five years, evaporation has officially claimed the last of Washoe’s waters.

Jennifer Ramella of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said Little Washoe at the main lake’s north end still has a bit of water in it but that too is fading.

Due to the prospect of finding only bare ground, the Department of Water
Resources (DWR) did not conduct a May 1 snow survey at Phillips Station at the top of Echo Summit near Sierra-at-Tahoe.

“We can’t count on the Sierra snowpack to replenish our water supplies,” said California Department of Water Resources Director Mark Cowin. “Major reservoirs are dropping at a time when they typically would be filling with melted snow. We need careful, sparing use of water across the state, because we don’t know when this drought will end.”

At least 30 fish have been removed from in the area of Lake Tahoe beneath Fanny Bridge as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife combats low oxygen levels caused by the drought.

Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Kirsten Macintyre tells the Truckee Sierra Sun that 26 brown trout and four rainbow trout were caught below the bridge and relocated to a marina about six miles south. Recent readings showed low dissolved oxygen levels in the stagnant water below the bridge, so while there are fish remaining, the lower population should help.

Living in the midst of the fourth consecutive year of drought in the Sierra Nevada brings with it a responsibility to become fire adapted. While the Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team (TFFT) consistently thins forests, conducts prescribed burns and defensible space programs to reduce wildfire risk, they need the public's help to create Fire Adapted Communities at Lake Tahoe

The University of California, Davis and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency recently released their yearly water clarity readings for Lake Tahoe. The good news: Mid-lake water clarity improved significantly in 2014, with an average reading of 77.8 feet. That’s 7.5 feet greater than the average reading for 2013, and almost 14 feet greater than the 64.1 feet measured in 1997, Lake Tahoe’s lowest recorded clarity.

Climate experts are discussing what we can do for the future in the drought. A forum on Wednesday afternoon summarized the climate conditions for the entire Great Basin, and how they affect resources like agriculture and wildlife.

These forums are important because experts say climate not only has a big impact on our region, but experts say it also affects our economy.

Clarity levels at Lake Tahoe in 2014 showed the biggest improvements in more than a decade, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis, who have studied the lake for the last half century.

The improvements are in part due to continuous work from the Lake Tahoe community to lower pollutants to the lake. They were also influenced by the drought, as reduced precipitation meant fewer contaminants flowed into Lake Tahoe, particularly during the summer, when clarity levels were the highest recorded since 2002.

The Tahoe Metropolitan Planning Organization (TMPO) and its partners continue their lunchtime forum for learning and sharing ideas that strengthen our Tahoe communities.

Topics focus on transportation, environmental, and economic ideas that are pertinent to issues we face today at Lake Tahoe. They are always looking for idea on new topics.

Upcoming Brown Bag events:

Wednesday, April 15 – Dealing with Drought – Stewardship Practices at Sierra-at-Tahoe
Time: 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Speaker: John Rice, VP General Manager Sierra-at-Tahoe

An illegal campfire at Granite Lake in Desolation Wilderness started a wildfire on Tuesday according to the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). With the lack of a deep snowpack and high winds in the area this week, the fire could have easily spread had it not been for the quick response by USFS firefighters.

Illegal and unattended campfires cause over 90 percent of wildfires in the Lake Tahoe Basin. Fire managers are concerned about the impact from illegal campfires as we are in our fourth year of drought and forest conditions are already as dry as they would be in June.

Following the lowest snowpack ever recorded and with no end to the drought in sight, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced actions that will save water, increase enforcement to prevent wasteful water use, streamline the state's drought response and invest in new technologies that will make California more drought resilient.

There were more than 1,000 fires in California in 2014 and, because of the current dry conditions, 2015 is expected to be more of the same.

Is a bear invasion in Lake Tahoe's near future?

If you listen to veteran Bear League director Ann Bryant, you might want to start taking some serious precautions if you have a place in the Tahoe area.

"We are expecting not only the town bears around Tahoe, but the backwoods bears to start heading in this summer, in record numbers," Bryant said.

The reason: four years of drought have taken their toll on the bears' natural food source. Bryant said she's seeing a warm and relatively snow-free spring that is bringing bears out of hibernation early.

The strategic plan crafted by the Reno City Council this week will include a measure to ensure that climate change is addressed in the city's policies on growth.

At the council's day-long retreat Tuesday, Councilman David Bobzien argued climate change and the drought are already affecting city resources and poses a threat to the council's goal of providing "sustainable services."

"There's straight up city stuff we've got to be doing on this," Bobzien said, rejecting a suggestion that it should be left to other governmental entities."