Wine Country wants to improve weather forecasting for water storage

A new bill capitalizes on emerging forecasting technology to better prepare California for sudden droughts.
 
Forecast-informed reservoir operations, or FIRO, aims to retain as much water in reservoirs as possible ahead of storms and anticipated runoff while enabling better flood control as well. AB 30 would expand FIRO to more parts of the state. It gained unanimous support.
 
Mark Fenstermaker, a lobbyist for Sonoma Water, explained that 1960s-era federal rules led the district in 2013 to release 30,000 acre-feet of water from Lake Mendocino. It didn’t rain for another three years. In 2019 a minor rule change enabled the district to retain more in the reservoir.
 
Yet the lake all but dried up again in 2021, leading cities to cut water use in half and dairies and wineries to get creative in adapting to extreme scarcity.