PHOTOS: Half of California Out of Drought After Weeks of Rain, Snow

Half of the State of California is officially free from drought, thanks to a winter that has defied predictions and brought weeks of rain and snow to a state that had endured extremely dry conditions for the past three years.

The U.S Drought Monitor, a joint endeavor of “the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA),” reports every week.

Its latest report, released on Thursday, March 2, shows that much of the Central Valley, and the coastal region of the state from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay, has no drought at all. The rest of the coastal region, and much of the interior, is simply “abnormally dry.” Moderate and severe droughts persist, however, in the eastern and northern parts of the state, including eastern San Bernardino County and the northern Sierra Nevada.

Breitbart News noted snow covering the peaks and upper slopes of the Tehachapi Mountains north of Los Angeles on Thursday, where earlier in the week Interstate 5 had been closed due to heavy snowfall on the road.

 

Snow also appeared on peaks around Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay, even near downtown San Jose.

The hills, often brown by spring, are a deep green in both Southern and Northern California. Many dams are above historical averages, and state and federal authorities have increased allocations to local water users.

More rain and snow are expected in Northern California over the weekend, and more storms could be possible in the next several weeks before the winter officially ends, and the dry cycle of spring and summer return.

Experts predicted that this would be the state’s third consecutive dry “La Niña” winter, requiring severe water restrictions in the summer of 2023. That did not happen, thanks to a series of “atmospheric rivers” that hit the state, as moist air from the Pacific Ocean was carried to California and dropped rain and snow in abundance.

However, the state government faces new criticism over its failure to build new reservoirs in the past several decades that could have collected more of the rainfall, as well as ongoing struggles to recharge aquifers. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) also waited a week before declaring a state of emergency in the most recent blizzard.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.