Is the North Coast still in a drought?

To Teri Cownie, a school bus driver, the message on the electronic sign over Highway 101 in Santa Rosa doesn’t make sense. Like the 700-some signs like it statewide, it periodically advises motorists: “Severe Drought. Limit Outdoor Watering.”

“I was like, what?” said Cownie, a West End resident who uses buckets from the shower to water her plants. “Seems to me there were downpours of rain. There was so much (in early March) that Guerneville was put on alert for possible flooding.”

There was no flood, but the area’s more than 30 inches of rain nearly topped off the two major reservoirs that provide water to 600,000 people in Sonoma and Marin counties.

So when Cownie says she is “confused about the continuing drought,” well, she should be.

Whether Santa Rosa and the rest of the Russian River watershed are still in a drought appears to depend on whom one asks.

“Our region is not facing drought conditions at this moment,” said Brad Sherwood, a Sonoma County Water Agency spokesman.

Thanks to two large atmospheric river events in December and February, plus other sustained storms, the reservoirs - Lake Sonoma west of Healdsburg and Lake Mendocino near Ukiah - filled up during the rainy season, he said.

On Wednesday, Lake Sonoma was at 93 percent of water supply capacity, compared with 79 percent at the same time last year. The much smaller Lake Mendocino was at 98 percent of targeted water supply, compared with 61 percent last year.

Sherwood said his children saw the drought message on the freeway sign last weekend and he told them it did not exactly apply here.

Jennifer Burke, deputy director of water resources for Santa Rosa, said the highway messages were initially helpful in encouraging the public to conserve water.

Now, she said, “we’re not under the same drought conditions as the rest of the state. We’re very lucky in this region.”

Santa Rosa and five other Sonoma County water suppliers are awaiting official confirmation that they are no longer subject to state-mandated water conservation standards, based on findings that Lake Sonoma holds enough water to sustain their customers for three more potentially dry years.

But Max Gomberg, climate and conservation manager for the State Water Resources Control Board, doesn’t buy the notion that one wet winter dissolves a dry spell now in its fifth year.

“We’re not out of the drought, even though things are much better than they were last year, particularly on the North Coast,” he said.

There’s no telling what the next year or two may bring, with climate change in the works, Gomberg said. “It’s happening now.”

Cal Fire Capt. Amy Head said the state is “clearly still in a drought,” noting the North Bay’s abundant rainfall produced a bumper crop of wildland grass that is now dead, dry and “ready to burn.”

“Sonoma County residents should still be concerned,” she said.

No major wildfires have erupted yet in Northern California, Head said, “but it’s only July,” and everyone remembers the monster blazes that scorched more than 170,000 acres in Lake County last year.

Caltrans started posting drought messages on electronic highway signs in 2014, and doesn’t tailor the wording to the specifics of a given area, said Bob Haus, a transportation agency spokesman.

“Officially, the state is still in a drought,” he said. “You have to have a clear and simple message.”

But if you want to get technical about it, only 60 percent of California is in a severe, extreme or exceptional drought (the three driest categories), and mostly in Central and Southern California, according to the most recent United States Drought Monitor.

Most of the North Coast from Marin County to the Oregon border, including virtually all of Sonoma County, is classified as abnormally dry, the mildest of the monitor’s five categories.

Joanie G. Stevens of Ukiah, who identifies herself as a “water saver since the drought in the 1970s,” said she’s not confused about whether the region is still in a drought.

“Nothing has changed except we had one winter with a fairly normal amount of rain,” she said in an email.

“People say there is no drought because they don’t want to think about their use of water or change their habits.”

Local water officials are not disputing the state’s contention that conservation remains a top priority.

“We’re still asking everyone to use water wisely,” Sherwood said, acknowledging the forecast of a potential La Niña, portending a possibly drier than average winter ahead.

Burke noted that Santa Rosa water customers, as of June, have reduced consumption by a cumulative 25 percent this year, compared with 2013.

And a sign next to the empty pond in Juilliard Park, advising “We turned the water off because there’s a drought on,” is about to come down.

The pond was drained because it was leaking during the drought, and it will be refilled as soon as major repairs are completed, said Adriane Mertens, a Recreation and Parks official.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.