New Water Year Opens Under Cloud of El Nino

Even though the storm season is still a month away, the county’s hydrologists and other water watchers are already thinking about rain.

That’s because Tuesday marked the end of one water year, and today is the beginning of another.

Within the next few days, water experts from the Ventura County Flood Control District should have total rainfall tallies for last year. Tallies taken after the most recent rainfall last week show a healthy water year. Depending on the city, rainfall was between 79% and 108% of normal.

Just as important, hydrologists and local water district managers--with an eye toward the weather condition known as El Nino--are forecasting what the new water year will bring Ventura County’s way.

The consensus: Rain. Inches and inches and inches of rain. Or else a drought. It’s hard to tell.

“With El Nino, you just don’t know,” said Don Kendall, general manager of Calleguas Municipal Water District, the county’s biggest water supplier. “I can’t tell you if it will be a dry or a wet year. The best thing to do is to expect the unexpected.”

Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Oxnard are leaning toward the wet side.

“We’re anticipating a wetter-than-normal year,” said meteorologist Bruce Rockwell. “There’s an 80% chance that rainfall will be above normal. At this point, I don’t think there is much chance of a drought.”

Southern California’s seasonal rains usually begin in November and last through March, he said. But El Nino patterns are a little different: Storms come later, in late December or early January, and they are more forceful.

To mark the water new year, imported water from Northern California will start gushing into Calleguas’ half-full Bard Reservoir beginning today.

And the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District--of which Calleguas is a member agency--will start its so-called seasonal storage program, which calls for the MWD to sell water at cut rates when it is most plentiful. The hope is that local purveyors will inject it into aquifers or pump it into reservoirs and then conserve it for next summer, when demand is sure to be greater.

Over at the Ventura County Flood Control District, Tuesday’s conclusion of the water year was marked with a helicopter ride to 16 water gauges in the back country that track rainfall in the county’s most remote corners.

“We ought to have a party, don’t you think?” said Dolores Taylor, the county’s senior hydrologist.

Instead, she and her crew emptied rainwater from 10-foot-tall steel pipes that have mouths a foot in diameter.

Once the pipes are free of old water and debris--intrepid spiders, leaves and the occasional dead bird--they are prepped for a new year.

The district will also hang up new rainfall sheets today, much as average folk hang a new calendar Jan. 1. Taylor said her new water year’s resolution is: Be prepared for El Nino.

“I’m not a climatologist, but . . . I just can’t believe it’s not going to dump a whole lot of water in this area,” Taylor said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Annual County Rainfall

Here are rainfall figures for the past year in inches. Oct. 1 is the start of the official rain year. Also shown are the maximum rainfall amounts and the year in which they occurred. With the El Nino weather pattern now in the Pacific Ocean, many weather experts are predicting record rainfall throughout California. The last El Nino, in 1983, produced many of the record rainfalls.

*--*

Rainfall Normal Percent of since rainfall normal Maximum Location Oct. 1, 1996 to date rainfall Year Camarillo 12.64 13.26 95% 1941 Casitas Dam 24.31 23.33 104% 1983 Casitas Rec. Center 24.95 23.18 108% * El Rio 14.01 15.06 93% * Fillmore 19.72 18.72 105% 1983 Matilija Dam 28.09 26.87 105% 1969 Moorpark 13.96 14.72 95% 1983 Oak View 21.70 22.24 98% * Ojai 20.88 21.46 97% 1978 Upper Ojai 24.36 23.61 103% 1969 Oxnard 12.83 14.55 88% 1941 Piru 16.72 17.31 97% 1983 Port Hueneme 11.10 14.03 79% 1941 Santa Paula 18.96 17.49 108% 1983 Saticoy 16.04 15.63 103% * Simi Valley 14.06 14.46 97% 1983 Thousand Oaks 14.27 15.35 93% 1983 Ventura 14.76 14.40 103% 1941 Ventura Govt. Center 14.77 16.05 92% 1941

Rainfall Location amount Camarillo 33.43 Casitas Dam 51.13 Casitas Rec. Center * El Rio * Fillmore 42.30 Matilija Dam 70.04 Moorpark 32.48 Oak View * Ojai 48.60 Upper Ojai 56.58 Oxnard 38.17 Piru 40.36 Port Hueneme 32.99 Santa Paula 38.03 Saticoy * Simi Valley 35.06 Thousand Oaks 32.75 Ventura 36.71 Ventura Govt. Center 39.95

*--*

* Maximum rainfall amounts not available for all locations

Source: Ventura County Flood Control District