Did you know most of our rainfall flows into the ocean so it doesn't

[cboy4]

really matter how much precipitation we get in terms of building our water supply?

Sure, we need the rain to water everything down, but in terms of filling our major reservoirs like Shasta, Oroville and Folsom, etc., .. apparently not important .. it mostly drains into the fricken Pacific. x(

What's critically important is our snowpack, which is why the Department of Water Resources measures water content in the Sierra every month during the winter.

Did anyone else know this? I thought I knew, but wasn't positive until I heard it on the radio.

Or is the information I heard incorrect?

[roody]

1. Every home in NoCal should have its own water catchment.

[kestrel91316]

6. Every home anywhere on the frickin' planet that gets a little rain should

have a water catchment system. Here in So Cal, we don't get much rain statistically, and only during the winter months, but we get some HUGE storms with several inches at least once and sometimes MANY times during the season. People here could easily harvest enough rain to meet their household needs with the exception of lawns and swimming pools and doing ten times the laundry that's really needed(which need to become things of the past).

[proud patriot]

2. A local water co , wants to expand one of it's reservoirs

[Auggie]

4. And therein lies the question -- do we need more/bigger reservoirs?

Better conservation? Or both?

Hetch Hetchy, before and after

[Xithras]

3. Sort of depends on where you live.

Here in the flatlands of the Central Valley, a very large part of our drinking water supply comes from our fairly shallow aquifers. That rainfall recharges those aquifers and keeps our taps flowing.

But you're mostly correct. Before the reservoirs were built, most of northern California was a lake in the winter, a swamp in the spring, and then bone dry from May to November. The snow fills the reservoirs, and that water is metered out during the dry months to keep us from parching.

[CreekDog]

5. what do you mean "drains into the *fricken* Pacific"???