Lake Cachuma’s surface sparkles in the afternoon sunlight, the water lapping gently against the concrete walls of Bradbury Dam.

The 193,304-acre-foot reservoir in the Santa Ynez Valley provides water to much of Santa Barbara County. Today, it is mostly full at 88% of capacity.

That’s a far cry from the situation about two short years ago, when the reservoir had dropped down to 31% full.

However, the bucolic scene at Lake Cachuma today belies the fact that, after two wet years, the county has edged back into drought conditions, raising concerns about water supplies and fire danger.

The southeastern half of the county is now listed as being in “moderate drought,” according to the U.S. Drought Monitor map. The northwestern portion has been tagged as “abnormally dry.”

With much of the rainy season still ahead, the situation could change significantly.

To date, however, the county overall has received just 7% of normal precipitation for the “rain year” that began on Sept. 1, 2024.

Most areas of the county’s South Coast have recorded less than a tenth of an inch of rain in the past 30 days, according to the county Public Works Department.

North County communities have fared only modestly better, with all measuring less than a half-inch.

Yet, local water managers say the current situation is not surprising. They expressed confidence that the county’s water supplies should be in good shape for at least the next two to three years.

Climate in County Is ‘Extremely Variable’

“Our climate here in Santa Barbara County is extremely variable,” Matthew Young, county Water Agency manager, told Noozhawk. “It’s not unusual to have an extremely wet year followed by an extremely dry year.

“One dry year is not going to make or break our water supply. If we start to string a few in a row, we’ll start to get worried.”

He added, “I think our approach doesn’t change too much based on how much rain we are getting in a given year, with the caveat that if we start getting a few dry years in row, we will start to ramp up our conservation message.”

Joshua Haggmark, water manager for the City of Santa Barbara, echoed Young’s assessment.

“It’s not unusual for us to have a dry year after a wet year,” Haggmark said. “A lot of our water supply planning has been built for this kind of situation. There is not any reason to panic.”

Rainfall in Santa Barbara County is quite seasonal, with 76% of the precipitation coming from the period of December through March.

On average, February is the wettest month at 22% of total rainfall, followed by January at 21%, March at 18% and December at 15%. There typically is little to no rain from June through August.

Region Relies on Varied Water Sources

Young pointed out that, beyond Lake Cachuma, the region’s depleted groundwater basins have begun to refill in the wake of two above-average rain years.

Haggmark also noted that Santa Barbara’s wells are offline, and in fact, the city is injecting water back into the basins.

In addition, the city is seeing “quite a bit of water” seeping from the watershed into the Mission Tunnel, the conduit that carries water from the reservoirs through the mountains to the South Coast.

Santa Barbara also continues to rely on its desalination plant, which Haggmark said is “chugging along behind the scenes.”

Many local jurisdictions also can tap into their allocations from the State Water Project, which brings water from Northern California.

Entities contracted with the State Water Project currently expect to receive 15% of their allocations, Young said. That number may well increase depending on how much snow falls in Northern California in the coming months.

In addition, most entities have considerable hold-over supplies of State Water from previous years.

Another piece of the water puzzle is conservation — efforts in the community to use less water through landscape modifications, low-flow devices and related strategies.

Haggmark noted that, despite the dry conditions in recent months, conservation efforts have not waned.

“Our community is just crushing it on conservation,” he said.

With Dry Conditions, Risk of Wildfires Remains

Beyond the water supply concerns, the lack of rainfall means much of the county remains at risk for a major vegetation fire of the sort that devastated the Los Angeles area this month.

Measurements of soil moisture through what is known as the “antecedent index” reveal extremely dry conditions. That means that the vegetation is unusually dry for this time of year, making it easier to burn.

Normally by January, the Santa Barbara County Fire Department and other local agencies would have downgraded from their “peak season” staffing.

“We haven’t changed from that because we haven’t had changes in fuel moisture,” county Fire Chief Mark Hartwig said.

Several of the areas the county monitors for soil moisture are at “critical levels,” Hartwig said, notably the frontcountry of the Santa Ynez Mountains and Camino Cielo along the ridge.

In the wake of the LA conflagrations, Hartwig is urging area residents to be vigilant and prepared. He is a strong advocate to the county’s “Ready, Set, Go” approach.

In the meantime, he said, “we should consider ourselves to be in fire weather until we get our wetting rains.”

Wet Weather May Be on the Way

Meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld with the National Weather Service in Oxnard confirmed what is already known.

“We’ve been in a very dry pattern the last few weeks,” she said. “There’s generally been an offshore flow, and storms are not approaching our area.”

The bad news is that those conditions are expected to continue through this week.

With the winds in Southern California expected to kick up again, Schoenfeld said, the National Weather Service is contemplating issuing another Red Flag Warning for fire-weather danger.

The good news, she added, is that longer-range forecasts show a wetter weather pattern emerging toward the end of January into February.

“It’s starting to look like some chance for rain during that period,” Schoenfeld said. “It’s not looking like an atmospheric river, but of a mild rain.”

If those conditions persist, February could end up more like its rainy self.

“Our region has an equal chance of being above or below normal rainfall for February,” she added.

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