Call it the Southern California drought. Rain and snow end Northern California water woes

A week of powerful storms in Northern California
 has significantly eased the state’s water shortage.

What was once a statewide drought this week became a Southern California drought.

A week of powerful storms has significantly eased the state’s water shortage, pulling nearly all of Northern California out of drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The  report underscores what experts have been saying for several months. As a series of storms have hit Northern California this winter, the drought picture there is improving, but water supply remains a concern in Southern California and the Central Valley.

More than 40% of the state is no longer in a drought, according to the data released Thursday.

Perhaps most striking, a giant swath of the state was declared to have no signs of abnormal dryness at all. The percentage of the state that fell into that category nearly doubled from 18% last week to almost 35% after the storm.

Read the Los Angeles Times story - “Call it the Southern California drought. Rain and snow end Northern California water woes.”

California braces for unending drought

Sinking houseboats on
California's Lake Oroville.

Los Angeles: With California entering its fifth year of a statewide drought, Governor Jerry Brown has launched permanent water conservation measures and called on suppliers to prepare for a future made forever drier by climate change.

Under the Governor's executive order on Monday, emergency drought regulations, such as bans on hosing down driveways or watering lawns within 48 hours of a rainstorm, will remain indefinitely.

Urban water suppliers will be required to report their water use to the state each month and develop plans to get through long periods of drought.

Despite winter rains that replenished reservoirs and eased dry conditions in parts of northern California, the Governor suggested the drought may never entirely end, and that the state needed to adapt to life with less water.

Read the story by Ian Lovett in today’s Melbourne Age - “California braces for unending drought.”