California should expect a ‘fourth dry year’ as drought persists
The Associated Press
Thursday
Jul 25, 2018 at 6:06 PM
The California drought has continued, and the state’s drought monitor remains at very unhealthy levels across almost all of its counties.
SAN FRANCISCO — The California drought has continued, and the state’s drought monitor remains at very unhealthy levels across almost all of its counties. On Monday, the state had its wettest day in records dating back to the late 1800s.
The water shortage has made the drought worse. The severity is now worse than any other California drought in history, according to forecasters at AccuWeather, which issued a drought alert for the state in February.
The weather has taken a toll on California’s economy — more than 3.5 million residents are projected to need food aid in September and October of next year, and thousands of children were told to evacuate their schools in February, according to Department of Education officials.
State water officials are still hoping for a breakthrough in the drought. Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has declared a drought emergency in the state, and an early-spring snowpack outlook calls for a 10 to 12 percent reduction in runoff from the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 25, 2018
California’s Central Valley, which has become the largest agricultural growing region in the United States, is facing one of its worst droughts in decades.
Agency records show the worst-case drought in the valley is also the third driest since 1891. The most recent statewide drought, which began in 2013, is also expected to be the worst in state history, said Jim Harty, water resources manager for the California Department of Water Resources.
The drought extends across the state, with some areas seeing more rain than last year, said Peter Hahn, a water resources engineer for the department.
“We’re going to stay in drought until we get this rain,” Hahn said.
California has some of the weakest water storage in the western United States and gets about 60 percent of its water from rainfall, the second lowest share in the nation behind Nevada, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The state uses about 60 percent of its annual rainfall