Eastern lows and snowfalls disguise difficulties in California

Given the historic low temperatures and snowfalls that pummeled the eastern U.S. this winter, it might be easy to overlook how devastating California's winter was as well.

An Op-Ed by Jay Famiglietti published in the Los Angeles Times warns that California’s water supplies are drying up.

He writes, “As our “wet” season draws to a close, it is clear that the paltry rain and snowfall have done almost nothing to alleviate epic drought conditions.

“January was the driest in California since record-keeping began in 1895. Groundwater and snowpack levels are at all-time lows.

“We're not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we're losing the creek too,” he says.

His story - “California has about one year of water left. Will you ration now?” – says, “Statewide, we've been dropping more than 12 million acre-feet of total water yearly since 2011. Roughly two-thirds of these losses are attributable to groundwater pumping for agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley.”