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California is completely drought-free for the first time in a quarter of a century, a significant development in a state that endured grueling years with insufficient rainfall.
Over the last 25 years, drought conditions in California have intensified the state’s wildfire crisis and created challenges in its massive agricultural sector. But a few wet years, and a recent spate of winter storms, helped bring the state out of drought.
A map published by the US Drought Monitor on Thursday showed that no part of the state is experiencing drought or abnormal dryness. The development came after weeks of above-normal rainfall that helped fill reservoirs in the state, including lakes Shasta and Oroville, far beyond their historic averages. The December holiday season has been one of the wettest on record for parts of southern California.
In 2005 and 2011, the state saw periods with less than 1% of abnormal dryness, noted the National Drought Mitigation Center, the academic partner of the US Drought Monitor.
This news marks the first time since the year 2000 that not a single square mile of California is dry on the US Drought Monitor, Drew Tuma, an ABC7 meteorologist, said in a post on social media.
“If you’re 25 or younger you’ve always lived in a world where California has been entering or recovering from drought,” Tuma wrote.
Intense and deadly winter storms pummeled California in 2023, inundating the state with rain and hurricane-force winds that toppled trees and flooded rivers, left thousands without power, and led to more than 20 deaths. Months earlier, the state had been under significant water conservation rules. The barrage of storms that year helped ease the state’s drought, but didn’t eliminate it.
Even into late December, there were still abnormally dry conditions in parts of the state – notably Modoc county in the north-east. That changed with heavy rains at the start of the year.
But while California is out of drought, it’s not necessarily out of the woods yet. Recent snowpack measurements from the Phillips station in the Sierra Nevada found California’s snow levels currently stand around 70% of what is average for this time of year.
The snowpack, which melts into rivers and streams in the spring, provides about a third of the water used in the state. Hydrologists say its too early to draw conclusions about the state’s water supply for the year ahead.
“The trend we’re looking at right now is more rain than snow,” David Rizzardo, a hydrology section manager with the California department of water resources, told reporters last month. “We’d like to see the snow accumulation pick up by 1 April so that we’re closer to average.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
