wet and windy promise: soaking rain, snow, dark gray skies and a flash of
hope that the drought that has scorched this region had run its course. And
then came January - with record high temperatures and record low
rainfall.
And now, as the end of the official rainy season approaches - this state
gets 90 percent of its water from December through April, most of it in
December and January - California is facing a punishing fourth year of
drought. Temperatures in Southern California soared to record-high levels
over the weekend, approaching 100 degrees in some places. Reservoirs are
low. Landscapes are parched and blighted with fields of dead or dormant
orange trees. And the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which is counted on to
provide 30 percent of the state's water supply as it melts through early
summer, is at its second-lowest level on record.
The federal government has warned farmers for the second year in a
row that it would not be providing any water from its Central Valley Project
reservoir system. Any hope climatologists had that California would be
rescued again by a wet El Niño winter weather system is fading with the
arrival of spring.
(Source: New York Times)