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washing away, Smith said. Monterey County farmer Jynel Gularte saw the impacts of 2023’s atmospheric rivers, which submerged more than 200 acres of her farm, broke her levee in multi- ple places and destroyed a house. She said the financial damage has been difficult to recover from in the years since. “As you can imagine, it takes a lot of cap- ital to work your ground, to rebuild your levee,” she said. “We had blocks already planted that never came to fruition, so that was a complete loss for us.” Gularte said she wants the state to make changes that would better prepare people for future floods, including allowing vege- tation that clogs parts of the Salinas River to be cleared so the river can better absorb rainfall during extreme weather. The 2023 floods did bring Gularte some limited benefits. Her farm relies entirely on groundwater, which was partially re- charged by the storms that hit during the first few months of that year. The rainfall also allowed her to use less water for irri- gation later in the year. “On our other ranches that didn’t get flooded, we were able to use the natural rainfall to our advantage and schedule our farming practices around that,” Gu- larte said. But she said the benefits of the rainfall did not offset the damage caused by flood- ing. The 2023 floods left some of her acre- age unavailable for planting. She said she can make some changes to prepare for the incoming El Niño weather, such as waiting to plant in flood-prone ar- eas as late as possible and, if there’s a fore- cast of intense rain, moving equipment so it doesn’t get washed away by a flood. “I’m anxious about it,” Gularte said. “I don’t like hearing that it’s going to be a su- per El Niño because there’s no way we can have another flood like 2023 … That would be absolutely tragic.” Manola Secaira is a staff writer for Ag Alert. She can be reached at msecaira@cfbf.com.
He said 2016 offers a good example of how an El Niño event can fail to deliver the expected precipitation in California. That year, forecasters anticipated that a developing super El Niño would bring in- tense rainfall to the state. While the event brought heavy precipitation to other re- gions, its effects were weaker farther south, including in California. “What we found is that the way that the weather pattern set up resulted in the Pa- cific Northwest getting drenched and Cal- ifornia being left dry,” he said. “It was very opposed to what people were expecting for that particular season.” California’s snowpack has historically acted as a natural reservoir, contributing around 30% of the state’s overall water sup- ply. But a changing climate and declining snowpack levels by summer have chal- lenged that role. Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, said California needs to adapt by investing in more reliable sources of water to ensure water users aren’t left scrambling for sup- plies when warmer months arrive. “This is probably a year that is going to demonstrate the value of storage in Cal- ifornia that doesn’t rely on the slow drip of snowmelt generating inflow over the course of a long, hot summer after we get a great snowpack,” Nemeth said. She noted the state has worked to invest
This aerial view shows submerged farm fields caused by floodwaters from the Pajaro River in Monterey County after a levee breach in March 2023.
more in sustainable groundwater infra- structure so more winter precipitation can be stored even if it doesn’t stick around as snow. In addition to building infrastruc- ture, she said evolving forecasting tech- nology has been key to capturing more rain and managing floods. When warm rain falls on existing snow- pack during back-to-back storms, the snow can diminish quickly, Nemeth said. There- fore, tracking how those storms and their varying temperatures affect the remaining snowpack is essential for planning water supplies for the rest of the year, she added. State climatologist Michael Anderson said California has also worked to improve
its response to extreme weather during the winter, especially after the 2023 floods. One change has been making it easier for im- pacted areas at risk of flooding to take pre- ventive action, including diverting water from river channels to recharge aquifers. “A lot of what we did in 2023 (was) kind of in an emergency response mode,” he said. “There’s been a lot of work since then to try and actually move it into a more or- ganized space, done under changes to the water code and work with a control board on how it’s regulated so that you’re not re- lying on a governor’s emergency order to be able to do it.” Jason Smith, who grows winegrapes and serves as president of Monterey County Farm Bureau, said the 2023 floods were made worse by environmental regulations that prevented community members from clearing vegetation from waterways such as the Salinas River. He said he would like to see such regulatory restrictions changed. In the meantime, he said farmers have limited options when preparing for flood conditions. Some basic steps include clearing ditches and culverts and planting cover crops to help prevent sediment from
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18 Ag Alert September 16, 2026
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