With below average rainfall expected for the next three months, Santa Barbara County remains in a severe drought, the Santa Barbara City Council announced during its Water Supply Management Report meeting on Jan. 30.
Due to the most recent rain event on Jan. 9, the reservoir received 500 acre-feet of inflow.
According to Kelley Dyer, water supply manager for the City of Santa Barbara, the inflow to the reservoir can be treated, but it takes about three weeks for the sediment, including ash and mud, to settle out, so the county has been pulling from other sources.
The impact of the Thomas, Whittier and Rey Fires on water quality and supply of the Cachuma, Gibraltar, and State water supply “will last for years,” Dyer said.
The report showed the impact of rainfall from Sep. 1, 2017, to Jan. 29, 2018 in Santa Barbara, as well as the county’s two main sources for water supply.
From Dec. 10, 2016, to Jan. 23, 2017, the impact of of rainfall was much higher in Santa Barbara County and its sources of water.
The Gibraltar Reservoir received 133 percent of the expected amount of rainfall, and the Cachuma Reservoir received 147 percent of normal rainfall.
Santa Barbara County received 163 percent of typical rainfall for that time of year.
Dyer explained that when the Cachuma Reservoir stops spilling is when it is clear that Santa Barbara County is entering a drought.
She said that the last time Cachuma spilled was in 2011.

“It looks like we could be returning to a wet period around the middle of next week,” said John Lindsey, meteorologist for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. at Diablo Canyon Power Plant.
Lindsey said the “long-range numerical models continue to indicate a wet weather pattern developing” Tuesday and continuing for as long as a week.
At this point, runoff into the lake has slowed, with the soil starting to soak up water in the creeks and Gibraltar Reservoir finally dropping a couple of inches below the spillway level to 99.8 percent of its 5,272-acre-foot capacity.
“But I can tell the level has come up just since I was here a couple of days ago.” Near the first of October 2016, Cachuma had fallen to just 7.3 percent of its 193,305-acre-foot capacity at 14,177 acre-feet.
An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or enough to meet the average yearly water needs of about six people in most urban settings.
“If it wasn’t for the state water, I think the lake would have dried up three years ago,” Skytt said.
But once the rains started, the lake began to fill with increasing speed, rising to 13.6 percent of capacity by Feb. 6 and climbing to 18 percent in about a week, then jumping to 43.3 percent a week after that.
In fact, the level had risen high enough for boaters to use a launch ramp that has been high and dry for a couple of years.
Twitchell Reservoir northeast of Santa Maria is lagging the most among the county’s reservoirs, currently holding 70,351 acre-feet, or 36.1 percent of its 194,971-acre-foot capacity, although that represents an increase of 70,350 acre-feet for the water year.
Countywide, rainfall for the current water year was standing at 156 percent of the normal amount for March 13, according to figures from the Santa Barbara County Flood Control District.