TID farmers will hear about 2016 water outlook on Tuesday

Farmers in the Turlock Irrigation District will get their first glimpse of the 2016 water supply Tuesday night.

The district board will hold a rare evening meeting to hear a presentation by Tou Her, assistant general manager for water resources. No estimate of a possible water allotment was provided in advance of the meeting. It will be formally set at a later date.

The storm season so far has been above average, after four years of drought, but officials have cautioned that it will take much more to rebuild storage in Don Pedro Reservoir on the Tuolumne River.

TID farmers last year were capped at 18 vertical inches of water, although they could go up to 20 to complete their final irrigation. That was about 40 percent of the average deliveries from Don Pedro and district wells.

Precipitation was 128 percent of average in the Tuolumne watershed as of early last week, said Jason Carkeet, utility analyst for TID, in an update to the board last Tuesday. That figure has slipped with the dry spell of the past several days.

The National Weather Service said a storm is likely to break the spell Wednesday night, followed by a chance of showers Thursday and a return to dry conditions through Saturday.

TID supplies about 149,000 acres stretching from south Modesto to north Merced County and from the lower Sierra Nevada foothills to the San Joaquin River.

This story was originally published February 14, 2016 at 1:11 PM with the headline "TID farmers will hear about 2016 water outlook on Tuesday."