Drought

California’s snowpack is officially 162% higher than average, the fourth-highest ever recorded, after state officials performed the annual measurement this week in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

“Republic of Thirst” is a three-part series made possible by a generous fellowship from the Robert Novak Foundation. Part I of examined the debate over how California’s scarce water resources should be allocated. Part III will examine whether those resources can

Outgoing California Governor Jerry Brown will not be in office to see his “twin tunnels” project completed — if it is ever begun at all — after the state’s Department of Water Resources withdrew a key certification last Friday.

Outgoing California Governor Jerry Brown has reached a deal with U.S. House Republican leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to extend the 2016 Water Infrastructure for Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act, which would provide more water to farmers and fund water storage in the state, to 2021.

President Donald Trump is being credited for the passage of a new provision through the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday that will provide funding to help California to build its first water storage infrastructure in 40 years.

TEL AVIV – Israel is entering its sixth year of drought, the Water Authority said Sunday, with many of the country’s waterways at a 98-year low. 

Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) near Big Sur reopened in July, 15 months after the last El Niño’s torrential rainfall caused a giant mudslide — and just in time for a new expected El Niño rain.

The California Water Commission was awarded $816 million of Proposition 1 money to begin building the $5.2 billion Sites Reservoir — the state’s first big reservoir since the 1970s. The $7.5 billion Proposition 1: Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement

California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a draconian new water-rationing law that limits per capita daily water usage to less than the amount needed to shower and do a load of laundry.

A powerful rainstorm sweeping through Northern California brought the state’s annual precipitation closer to normal after a dry winter — and there is more of it on the way. Bay Area public radio station KQED reports that the “Pineapple Express,”

Dam safety experts are warning that a three-day storm set to hit Northern California beginning on Thursday could risk an overflow event at the partially rebuilt Oroville Dam spillway.

The annual measurement of the Sierra Nevada snowpack at the start of April has found that the 2017-2018 winter was technically still a dry one, despite the heavy rains and snows of March.

The next battle between the State of California and the Trump administration — after clashes over the environment, “sanctuary” laws, and the border wall, to name a few — will be over water.

For months, Cape Town, a city of four million people, has been facing the doomsday scenario of taps running dry. The city’s Theewaterskloof Dam, a water reservoir which once supplied the city 50 percent of its supply, looks more like a desert area.

Punxsutawney Pete saw his shadow Friday morning and predicted six more weeks of bitter snow and cold in the East, but corresponding sunny warmth and drought in California.

As the 2017 wildfire season in California recedes in time, if not in memory, the 2018 wildfire season is looming into view. And so if you live in the Golden State—now the Scorched State, as more than 500,000 acres were burned in 2017—you should be worried about a fire-haunted future.

Cape Town, South Africa, a city of four million people, will run out of water on April 12, in what local officials are calling “Day Zero.”

Local authorities have ordered evacuations in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties in areas below mountains and hillsides that were burned in the recent Thomas fire, as the winter’s first major rainstorm approaches California.

California is facing the prospect of a very dry winter, a year after one of the wettest winters on record, renewing fears of a devastating drought that gripped the state from 2011 to 2016.

Several wildfires in Southern California continued to blaze out of control into Wednesday morning, as firefighters reported “zero containment” on the Thomas fire near Ventura and the Creek fire near Sylmar in Los Angeles.

A masive wildfire that erupted overnight and burned over 30,000 acres has forced 27,000 people in Ventura County to evacuate their homes as 150 structures were destroyed, according to reports from local news and wire services.

California has a big reason to be thankful at Thanksgiving this year: the winter season that ended in April snapped a crushing five-year drought and saved the state’s agricultural sector.

California fire authorities report that none of the six major wildfires that have already burned 69,500 acres in the Central Coast wine country are under containment.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Evidence is piling up that this year’s sizzling summer in central and southeastern Europe has decimated crops, drained rivers and hurt the animal world.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican says it is shutting off all its fountains, including those in St. Peter’s Square, because of Italy’s drought.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) is leading an effort to end environmentalists’ ability to delay the building of dams and reservoirs on federal land by fast-tracking control of the permitting process, placing power in the hands of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

After a nearly decade-long drought, the state known for its endless summer, is now home to a seemingly endless winter, with eight feet of snow on the ground in some of the western mountain ranges.

U.S. Geological Survey issued new reports stating that cyclical drought areas in California could be relieved by purifying the vast amounts of underground brackish (salty) water.

California’s Northern Sierras have set an all-time record of 89.7 inches of precipitation for the 2016-7 year, as new storms are about to push the record higher.

California Gov. Jerry Brown declared Friday that the drought in his state is officially over, with a formal declaration to an end of the drought state of emergency in most counties.