40% of California Out of Drought

Federal drought watchers last week said more than 40 percent of California is out of drought. Last week’s announcement comes after powerful storms sent people in the northern areas fleeing from flooding rivers and doubling snowpack in the Sierra Nevada’s in a little more than a week.

Jay Lund, Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California at Davis, says “It’s hard to say we have a drought here right now.”

The weekly drought report says that 42% of California is now out of drought.  Last year at this time, that number was only 3%.

Southern California didn’t get the severe storms residents did further north, but they have had enough rain to be pulled out of the most severe category.  Only 2% of the state is left in the most severe category, a stretch of land between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.  43% of the entire state was in the most severe category a year ago at the same time.

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