For the first time since 2020, most of California is no longer in a drought.
Soaked by heavy rains in recent weeks after a January that saw flooding from a parade of atmospheric river storms, the majority of California — including the Bay Area — is no longer in a drought, federal officials reported Thursday.
“The Pacific weather systems of this week and last week added to copious precipitation that has been received from atmospheric rivers since December 2022, especially over California,” wrote Richard Heim, a meteorologist with NOAA. Legally, all 58 of California’s counties have been in a drought emergency that was declared by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October, 2021, a status that included a state order for local water agencies to impose conservation restrictions on homes and businesses.
In November, 40.9% of the state was in extreme drought, the third worst of four categories the report uses, and 16.5% was in exceptional drought, the worst. After a series of nine atmospheric river storms from late December to mid-January, which triggered flooding, killed 20 people and brought snow blizzards to the Sierra Nevada, the Drought Monitor removed all of the state from those two most severe categories.
In the Bay Area, all nine counties are either entirely or mostly in “abnormally dry” status now, a level below drought.
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