Nearly 40 percent of California, the northern part of the state, is free of drought, a startling change thanks to heavy rain and snow since the Oct. 1 start of the wet season, says the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor. But moderate to exceptional drought covered the central and southern parts of the agriculturally important Central Valley of the nation’s No. 1 farm state.
Southern California is entering its sixth year of drought. Although the intensity of drought has eased somewhat, “above-ground (reservoirs) and underground (wells) water supplies still lagged below normal,” said the Drought Monitor. In the Central Coast region, “even with the rains, no stream flows have been generated in the Santa Ynez, Ventura and Santa Clara watersheds.”
The water year, beginning on Oct. 1, is off to an exceptionally wet start, with the state snow content at 135 percent of its Jan 10 average and precipitation indices in the Northern Sierra, San Joaquin and Tulare Basin at the highest level ever.
Deven Upadhyay, water resource manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, cautioned against over-optimism. “I sometimes talk about it being more like a nine- or 10-year drought,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Really, the only wet year we had was in 2010-11.”