Lisa Lien-Mager, Deputy Secretary for Communications for the California Natural Resources Agency, left, Michelle Meade with the National Weather Service, Grant Davis, Director of the California Department of Water Resources and Frank Gehrke, Chief of the Calif. Cooperative Snow Surveys Program, conduct the first snow survey of the 2018 season at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The survey site is approximately 90 miles east of Sacramento off Highway 50 in El Dorado County. Photo taken January 3, 2018.
Credit: Kelly M. Grow/ California Department of Water Resources

December 1, 2018 - SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) on Friday announced an initial water allocation of 10 percent for the State Water Project (SWP) contractors for the 2019 calendar year. Allocations often change as hydrologic and water supply conditions change.

“Even with the recent rainfall, Water Year 2019 has started dry and many of the state’s largest reservoirs are below average for this time of year,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “With California’s extreme hydrology, we have to plan for a wet or dry year.”

The Department’s initial allocation for 2018 was 15 percent. The final allocation for 2018 reached 35 percent. The lowest initial SWP allocation was 5 percent in 2014 due to the record drought.

Reservoir storage, snowpack, precipitation, and releases to meet local deliveries are among several factors used in determining allocations.

Lake Oroville, the SWP’s largest reservoir, is at 29 percent capacity and 48 percent of average for this time of the year. Shasta Lake, the Central Valley Project’s (CVP) largest reservoir, is at 48 percent of capacity and 80 percent of average. San Luis Reservoir, the largest off-stream reservoir in the United States where water is stored for the SWP and CVP, is at 57 percent of capacity and 96 percent of average.

DWR transports SWP water to 29 SWP contractors which serve more than 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland. The 2019 initial allocation amounts to 427,167 acre-feet of water.

DWR’s California Data Exchange Center website shows current water conditions at the state's largest reservoirs and weather stations and measures current rain and snow precipitation.
Source: DWR