They depend on the Colorado River and snow fall in the Rockies.
Snow fall is Mother Nature which effects the Colorado River but Southern California also has a percentage of water rights coming from the Colorado River.
There is only so much water in a glass (river) and, when you have too many straws (states) in the glass, the water in the glass is going to disappear quickly.
When Nisha was in grad school at ASU and we were living (and I was working) in the Phoenix area, we did our best to adapt to the conditions. But I got really frustrated when my workplace got a new manager who just moved from Georgia, who was really proud about how clean her car was. I mentioned “but you’re in a desert now”, and she just replied “that’s okay; I’ll wash it twice a week if that’s what it takes”. (and she washed it herself; not at a carwash that recycled water).
Some people just don’t get it. GRRRR. 
So the entire area is under a tornado watch …
There is a tornado on the ground in one of the near by towns and that storm is spitting out 5 inch hail. That’s hail the size of a large grapefruit and punches holes in roofs and outside walls.
Edit:
Second tornado on the ground in another town a little closer with 4 inch hail.
Going to be a fun evening.
Stay safe!
Second night … under tornado watch …
Tonight’s 1st tornado is about 20 miles north west of us and is tracking towards us.
Currently, this tornado storm has 2 inch hail and has multiple vertexes (which means multiple tornadoes within the tornado structure).
It’s moving slow currently at 10 mph … so 90 minutes to 2 hours away.
Local tv currently tell us to be ready to take cover.
We have a storm cellar … so we are setting it up now.
Let you know later how this works out.
Where do you live?
In the NYC area we are just scheduled for two days of rain.
West Texas … it is our season for thunderstorms and tornadoes.
We are in a 14 day stretch where there are thunderstorms some where in the area (our area is a 200 mile radius). This time of year … the thunderstorms produce tornadoes.
Tonight … the thunderstorm was about a 25 mile circle with a heavy hail core (produced hail up to 5 inches) and had a tornado with 3 tornado vertex within the complex which circled around each other. Lucky for us, this one went a mile and a half west of town. Tornado sirens went off so we were in our cellar for about 45 minutes until the core passed.
Last night … two tornadoes tracked on the ground for over 2 1/2 hours to the east of us.
Looks to be a busy season for roofers and auto dent removers this year if this keeps up.
Thunderstorms here can produce 2 to 5 inches of rain in an hour and flash floods.
Good thing, too. Starting to get worried about ASV’s bidet.
(Plus hopefully some on S. Jersey, where we surpassed our annual average wildfire area burned just this past Tuesday.)
So close! Stay safe!
This is one of the most crazy things we have seen.
So the storm, that came through earlier with the tornado and 3 inch hail, went south of us about 25 miles and stalled out. In the last hour, it has back built towards us and is now moving north back at us. It doesn’t have a tornado now and the hail is down to 1 inch size.
Just never have seen a storm go south - south east, stop and then go north - north east right back over where it has already been.
I have a sister who lives in Woodward, OK which is near the panhandle. It’s “close” to West Texas so she often gets the same storm systems that you do. I visited her once several years ago while thunderstorms were in the area. They had a weather radio that kept going off during the night announcing storm warnings. It’s nerve-wracking when you’re trying to sleep and you hear these repeated warnings.
Stay safe @Lost_My_Marbles
One has to have a weather radio if you live in an area like this.
The storm that sent us to the cellar was over us from about 4pm to midnight which was very weird for a thunderstorm to do what it did. About the time it quieted down, another storm became active about 20 to 25 miles north so our weather radio started going off every 10 to 20 minutes. This went on from 12am to about 3:30am as it was producing a tornado with 3 inch hail. Needless to say … we are a little sluggish this morning … listening to the thunder outside as it is still raining off and on.
Besides the weather radio, we have our phones set up to get the alerts so you run around trying to listen, and/or read texts, and then turn everything off and wait for the next alert. Might sound crazy to do both but, if you loose electricity, then the weather radio is gone. If a cell tower gets knocked down or a cell service station knocked out, then you loose the cell phone.
July 1, 2017 at midnight … one reformed right outside of town and hit us with out a warning. Everyone in town had damage. The hail was so intense for 30 minutes you couldn’t hear anything. So much hail that hail drifts next to the house lasted about a week even though we were having 90+ degree days. So much damage that FEMA sent a team out to respond.
Lazy day in Los Angeles this Saturday. It rained this morning !!
and for those not LA natives, this will probably be the last rain for 7 months.
And with cool ocean breezes, mediterranean climate, Southern California and Los Angeles
truly won the hearts of the gods, when doling out the weather on this earth.
But for the faults we have in running this empire of 10 million, it still can be a mighty fine place to live.
Those pesky shake, rattle and roll events can not be excluded.
Too many things in LA have been lost to concrete.
Strawberry fields by Disneyland
Torrance marshland
Marina Del Ray delta area (& strawberry fields)
San Fernando orchards
High Desert Peach and Pear orchards
High Desert carrot and green onion farms
The wild life that use to roam the Los Angeles forest
So much about LA when we lived there … no longer exists and is covered by concrete now.
Oh my, the memories of “older” california.
I bet each and every one of us lament the changes live has made on our childhood homes.
In 1966 to 1978 I lived in Venice, Marina Del Rey, and just up on the cliffs, Playa Del Rey and Westchester.
LAX took our Westchester home, and half of Playa del Rey for airport safety.
The vast Howard Hughes land tract marsh of Ballona Creek, (I think LAs largest privately own tract - or was) was split and half saved, but the other is now commerical and high priced condos.
As kids, we would come down Lincoln Blvd, and there was an old mexican man, selling flowers on Lincoln on the Hughes property. There every day, for 20 years, probably more. But no more
The Marina now fully built out, and “quaintly old”. Obviously all the beach front property all filled and, built to monsterous size.
On a side note. Thinking about the area. My uncle, who just passed at 95, was an LA native, whose family had a beach house. Back then, few had houses on the beach as LA “proper” is 10 miles inland, and to go to the beach was a “day outing”.
Anyway, that property, admittedly with a nice 1980 condo improvement built on it was bought for $5k back in the 1930s, is worth now $20 million. Of course he did not think so, or my aunt. they just live there. hahaha. crazy world.
Then we were in the same area. My uncle lives on top of those cliffs (Westchester).
In high school, we ran cross country practices from the school to Ballona Creek and back.
…small world sometimes …
Tonight is night 3 …
Any tornadoes that form will be west of us on the New Mexico / Texas state lines. That means a busy night after midnight if the storms hold together and make it here.
NBC nightly news did a piece on the weather here … the image of the tornado where it look brown because of all the dirt floating in it was the one that put us in the cellar last night.
EDIT UPDATE:
Got the rain total from last night … 5.91 inches between 5pm and midnight.
Lived on Pershing Drive in PDR, and Stewart Ave in Westchester.
Went to Orville Wright JH, and Westchester High, though I then moved again to Redondo and graduated there.
Ohh off topic… sorry gals and guys…
OK TWO WEATHER related stories, living in Playa Dey Rey (A small place on the beach) when I was a kid.
The first, I was asleep, and the whole world started shaking and crashing about, and I jumped out of bed and looked out the window only to see a thick as can be fog that envelopes the southern california coast in the early mornings and I (being that I was 12 and am clueless to the world), thought an ocean wave had struck and we were bobbling in the water. When in fact is was the large Sylmar quake of 1971
and two, I was a paperboy, and delivered papers for the old LA Herald Examiner. Anyway, LAX Airport is on the south side, and I would ride my bike up the last parallel street, with the whole world silent as it being Sunday morning at 6am or so, and a monsterous 747 would take off, with not a inkling of sound. Whether (get it) the angle of take off, or the morning coastal onshore breeze I had no clue, but the weather surely played apart.
You get that line that moved through about an hour ago? WOW…
That was a ■■■■ load of rain over a 20 min period…
Heard there may have been hail associated with it which thankfully didn’t happen. I was driving our spanking new car in that storm…