{"id":505034,"date":"2026-01-10T01:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T01:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/505034\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T01:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T01:34:12","slug":"california-is-drought-free-for-first-time-in-25-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/505034\/","title":{"rendered":"California is drought-free for first time in 25 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following winter storms that lashed California with rain and snow<\/a> in recent weeks, the state is completely free of drought for the first time in 25 years, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The last time California had no regions considered \u201cabnormally dry\u201d or in drought conditions was in December 2000.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s drought-free status is welcome news for water managers, but residents in some regions are still recovering from a series of punishing atmospheric river storms that brought intense rain and flooding.<\/a> Areas in higher elevations, meanwhile, have contended with heavy snow and risk of avalanches.<\/p>\n

Over the course of about a week beginning Dec. 20, parts of Northern California received up to 7 inches of precipitation, while up to 4 inches fell in southern parts of the state. Then, as New Year\u2019s Day approached, the state was hit once more with several rounds of heavy rain<\/a> and flooding. Together, the events pushed California\u2019s 17 major reservoirs to 129% of their average levels, according to state records<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"SteveSteve Wogoman carries Christmas presents from his granddaughter’s flooded home following heavy rains Dec. 22 in Redding, Calif. Noah Berger \/ AP<\/p>\n

The wet winter has boosted California\u2019s snowpack<\/a>, which is crucial to its water supply, though the snowpack is still lower than average. <\/strong>The California Department of Water Resources said at the end of December that readings from 130 monitoring stations throughout the Sierra Nevada indicated a statewide snow-water equivalent (a measure of the amount of water in the snowpack) of 6.5 inches, which is 71% of the average for this time of year.<\/p>\n

Officials remain hopeful, however, <\/strong>given that California\u2019s biggest snow producing months are typically January, February and March. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is still early in the season and our state\u2019s water supply for this year will ultimately depend on a continued cadence of storms throughout winter and early spring,\u201d Angelique Fabbiani-Leon, state hydrometerologist for the Department of Water Resources, said in a statement<\/a> Dec. 30.<\/p>\n

The Sierra Nevada snowpack usually supplies around 30% of California\u2019s yearly water needs.<\/p>\n

Unlike California, other parts of the West \u2014 including Nevada, Utah and Colorado \u2014 are grappling with persistent dry conditions and snow levels that are far below usual.<\/p>\n

Snowpack in Utah is at record lows, with 93% of the state currently in drought conditions, according to the Utah Division of Water Resources<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, more than 80% of monitoring stations are recording a \u201csnow drought,\u201d according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s National Integrated Drought Information System.<\/a> The term refers to snow-water equivalent readings that fall below the 20th percentile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following winter storms that lashed California with rain and snow in recent weeks, the state is completely free…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":505035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-505034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115868235451515565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}