Steady rainfall in the Bay Area gave an encouraging boost to water supplies, opened coastal streams to spawning salmon and extinguished this year’s wildfire season, but continued wet weather will be needed to saturate grasslands for West Marin’s farmers and ranchers struggling with scarce forage and rising feed prices.
Marin Water’s reservoirs are at 67 percent capacity, a nearly 20 percent increase over last year’s capacity at this time and on par with historical averages. In Inverness, rainfall is meeting averages, with 6.63 inches of rain recorded since Nov. 30 for a total of 9.51 inches since July 1. The Bolinas Community Public Utility District has measured 7.12 inches of rain since July 1, with more than half from December storms. Jennifer Blackman, the district’s general manager, said because of the community’s exemplary conservation, they have not had to draw water from their reservoirs, which are nearly full, instead drawing from Arroyo Hondo Creek.
After one of the hottest summers on record for many parts of the Bay Area, the early rains helped stow away fears of wildfire for now, but the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority is continuing its work to prepare for future disaster and encourages residents to do so, too.
“Even during the winter, M.W.P.A. is not at rest,” said Mark Brown, the agency’s executive officer. “We encourage our residents to [reduce wildfire risk], as this is the perfect time to start addressing home hardening and fire-smart landscaping items they may have been waiting to complete.”
Nor are ranchers and farmers at rest. According to Stefan Parnay, Marin’s agricultural commissioner, the rain has not been consistent enough to saturate the soil and cause enough runoff to significantly fill storage ponds. “The ground is so dry,” he said. “We’ll need another storm in the next week or two. Once the grass grows enough over the next month or so, then the ranchers can back off of buying supplemental feed.”
According to dairyman Albert Straus, several organic dairies expect financial losses averaging $250,000 this year. Since 2019, organic and conventional hay has seen a 40 to 60 percent jump in cost. In Sonoma and Marin, the number of dairies has fallen from 300 to fewer than 70 in the last 50 years.
Meanwhile, last week’s rainfall provided spawning salmon with the flows they needed in many West Marin creeks, though Jonathan Koehler, the fisheries program manager at Marin Water, said that frequency over magnitude is preferred for stabilizing watersheds. Heavy rainfall in spawning months can be detrimental and destroy fish nests.
Michael Reichmuth, a fisheries biologist for the Point Reyes National Seashore, and Preston Brown, a watershed biologist at the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, both expressed optimism for the coho cohort, which is estimated to be small this winter due to poor freshwater rearing conditions. Mr. Brown said juvenile salmon need slow water, abundant food, cover from predators and other positive habitat conditions.
Chinook and coho are now spawning in Lagunitas Creek, which saw large flows of 250 cubic feet per second prior to the weekend’s storms thanks to runoff and elevated baseflows from Peters Dam. In San Geronimo Creek, coho were spotted for the first time last week. Flows in that tributary approached 200 cubic feet per second briefly on Saturday, and the rainfall allowed for passage over the Inkwells.
Last weekend’s rain finally cleared a sandbar at Muir Beach that was blocking salmon access to Redwood Creek, but Mr. Reichmuth said initial surveys found no coho presence. Flows from an October storm gave Olema Creek the needed flows for fish to travel.
Steelhead trout can spawn in shallower pools than salmon, so concern for them is even lower, Mr. Reichmuth said.
Although the wet weather brings needed relief, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted last week that La Niña would continue through December, with equal chances of La Niña and ENSO-neutral from January to March. From February to April, NOAA predicts a 71 percent chance of ENSO-neutral. This is only the third time since recording began in 1950 that La Niña has ocurred three years in a row.
The Bay Area lies between different weather patterns: to the south, Californians experience a much drier winter during La Niña than their northern neighbors in the Pacific Northwest, where rainfall increases. “Predictions for weather months away are extremely fuzzy and we’re placing bets on complicated wagers,” said Warren Blier, a meteorologist and science officer with NOAA. “At this point we’re running above average [on rainfall], but there’s a long way to go. We’ll have to see as we get into the heart of the winter.”