California atmospheric rivers produced enough water for 4.8 million people

Since the start of the year, a slew of atmospheric rivers has brought so much rain to the state that its equitable to providing water for 4.8 million people for an entire year.

Several atmospheric rivers have battered the state this month, with the most recent storm arriving in northern California on Sunday and moving south through the state throughout this week. Although the rain has proven beneficial to the state’s drought, the storms have caused devastating floods and landslides. The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) drew attention to the impressive amount of water on Thursday in a post made on X, formerly Twitter.

Atmospheric rivers are defined as a “long, narrow region in the atmosphere—like rivers in the sky—that transport most of the water vapor outside of the tropics,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“This year’s storms have brought a lot of water to California. DWR is looking to the future with projects that will maximize the benefits of heavy rainfall, like the #DeltaConveyanceProject,” the organization posted.

A graphic shared with the post showed that so much rain has fallen that it is equivalent to 457,000 acre feet of water. That’s enough water to supply 4.8 million people or 1.6 million households for an entire year.

The Delta Conveyance Project was approved in December. The DWR describes the project as “a modernization of the infrastructure system that delivers water to millions of Californians,” according to its website.

“If the Delta Conveyance Project was operational, about 457k acre-feet of storm water from January 1 through February 20, 2024, could have been captured and moved in the #StateWaterProject system,” the DWR shared in a follow-up post. “This is enough water to supply about 4.8M people, or 1.6M households, for 1 year.”

Construction on the project is expected to begin in 2029 or 2030, Carrie Buckman, Environmental Program Manager for the Delta Conveyance Project told Newsweek. Buckman anticipates that the project will be complete by the mid-2040s.

Earlier this year, the DWR voluntarily released billions of gallons of water from Lake Oroville for flood risk mitigation in advance of an atmospheric river. The water traveled down the Feather River and eventually was captured in the San Luis Reservoir.

Water conditions in California have improved significantly since late 2022, when drought plagued most of the state. More rain is on the way, and the National Weather Service (NWS) Climate Prediction Center expects heavy precipitation to return to the northern half of the state by the end of next week.

NWS meteorologist Mike Wofford previously told Newsweek that El Niño could be the reason the state has received more rain than normal. El Niño is one of two climate patterns that greatly influences the Earth’s weather.

“Going into the winter, the expectation was that we would have higher rain amounts due to the El Niño situation in the Pacific,” Wofford said. “That tends to bring storms farther south and pull in more moisture.”