With reservoirs filling from a series of prodigious early season storms, state water officials had an announcement Wednesday that should be music to the ears of many California growers. Officials with the California Department of Water Resources more than doubled their water allocation estimates for the coming year, from 20 to 45 percent. The figure will almost certainly be adjusted again as the rainy season progresses and officials get a better idea of how much water they’ll have to distribute.
Currently, five of the dozen largest reservoirs in the state have the same or more water in them now, than they do in a typical year. Eight of them are more than half full, with the typically rainy months of January, February and March still ahead.