Don’t put away the pray for rain signs just yet. Despite the buckets of rain that came with the most recent storm that hit the Central Valley last week, more is needed to for a historic average precipitation year. The Turlock Irrigation District Board of Directors heard a more in-depth hydrology presentation at their Tuesday meeting before going over a preview to the upcoming irrigation season.
“Since last week, we’ve gained almost six inches within the watershed for the month of February…So that brings our year to date to 18.76 inches. Taking a look at percentage, that brings us to 82.6% for the date,” said hydrologist Olivia Cramer to the Board on Tuesday.
“We keep continuing to chip away, getting closer and closer to those average numbers…We’re starting to enter months we don’t typically see as many large storms, but it can always happen. We’ve heard of miracle Marches and awesome Aprils, but we still need to pay attention to what we see on that dry side.”
For the Tuolumne River watershed, snowpack runoff is just as important — if not more so — than actual precipitation.
“We’re in a very similar position as we were last year as far as snowpack. Although we’re below a little bit on precipitation compared to last year, we’ve had a little bit cooler of storms and it’s come in as snowpack for this year. We’re nowhere near what we were sitting at in 2023, which was a record breaking snowpack. It just shows the kind of variability we experience year to year within the watershed,” said Cramer.
The current water year also didn’t get a great start precipitation-wise, but it has started to look up.
“October through January we didn’t have a ton of precipitation. We had a lower soil moisture going into the year. So most of the storms that were coming in in that November and December period were really just priming the system, mostly going to soil moisture, rather than coming in as runoff. But now that we’re into February, we’ve had a lot of good storms. We’ve seen above 50% exceedance precipitation. Right now, we’re really close to that average monthly value. And most projections see that February will be around 175,00 acre feet, so well above the average of 145,000 by the end of the month,” said Cramer.
Don Pedro Reservoir storage is sitting at 783.8 feet (as of Tuesday morning) — a six foot increase since last week. Cramer said by the end of the irrigation season, there could be a lot of variability, where it could fill back up and other ones where the district would need to utilize storage in order to serve demands.
With the glass half-empty, half-full hydrology report, Wes Miller, TID Water Distribution Department Manager, presented to the Board a first look at what the 2025 irrigation season would look like.
“Based on the hydrology…what we’re looking at is somewhere between a 42 and 48 (inch water cap),” said Miller.
A 48-inch water year is what is considered “normal.” Under those best-case scenario conditions, growers would pay the normal rate schedule, there would be limited (groundwater) pump rentals, the district would utilize the recharge projects in West Turlock and East Turlock, and have replenishment water available both inside and outside the district with Board approval.
A 42 to 47-inch water year includes an uptick in pump rentals, limited use of TID drainage, no outside of district replenishment deliveries.
The projected irrigation season dates are March 13 to Oct. 29. Miller did present changes to the irrigation call center’s hours of operation. This season, the call center will be open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and be closed on weekends. Growers would still have the ability to order water online 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“We’re going to start today reaching out directly to growers that we’ve identified as solely ordering on the weekends,” said Miller.
The TID Board is set to vote on the 2025 irrigation season at their March 4 meeting.
For the agenda, minutes and video of Tuesday’s TID Board meeting, visit: tid.org.
