Bay Area water officials tracking how much rainfall will be captured
With the rainy season beginning, researchers are looking at how much rainfall will be captured.
"Like I said, I come here a couple times a day with the dog," said Tom Bunting, making his way through the rain. "And I wanted to see what the river was like."
Bunting and his lab Molly took advantage of a break from the heaviest rains to see what effect they were having on the nearby Russian River.
"It's come up a little bit. But like I said, it's got a lot of room to go. We can get a lot more water here," he observed.
Bunting said it's the kind of start he usually sees around Halloween, but he'll take it.
"This is perfect," he said of the storm "This is what we need. We could use some more of it."
"From what I understand, if you look at Ukiah, where we're expecting 10 inches of rain probably by the weekend, that's a very significant storm," explained Grant Davis, General Manager with Sonoma Water. "You look well above the average this time of year. So going into the year with that amount of rainfall in our reservoir is already captured. It's a wonderful way to start."
As the storm first arrives, the agency is watching to see how much of the early rainfall in this system actually goes into rehydrating the ground.
"I'm looking at it just came in this morning for both of our reservoirs, and it's not as simple as sort of you're gonna get saturated levels," Davis said. "It's a matter of how dry the soils are right now, how the last summer has gone, when the last rain event of any kind was happening."
And as much as 10 inches of rain on this watershed would absolutely jumpstart the system, which is doing well after two respectable years. Reservoirs across the state are at above historical averages to start the year. And Sonoma's water system is benefitting from changes in how reservoirs are managed, during storms exactly like this.
"We are engaging in something called Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations or FIRO," Davis said. "In Lake Mendocino, where you are right now, we've had two years back to back, but we've been able to hold what's called a pool above the normal flood control line. It's because we're getting better and better at monitoring AR. We know its general area. We know what type of integrated vapor is coming and it's just a matter of is it above your reservoir or below and how long are the patterns going to sustain. So, this region has helped develop forecasting for reservoir operations and now we're sharing that knowledge all throughout the state and the western states."
