Calif. needs better weather prediction tools for water management
By Guy McCarthy, Union Democrat
Current weather forecasting tools are less than adequate for managing California’s most vital natural resource, state water officials said Tuesday.
People at the state Department of Water Resources are now working with researchers at NASA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to develop new technology to better forecast moisture-laden atmospheric river storms, like the ones that hammered the Mother Lode and the rest of the Central Sierra in January and February.
Current short-term forecasting for seven days out is 70 percent accurate, while 14-day forecasts are 7 percent accurate, Grant Davis, director of the state Department of Water Resources, said Tuesday.