California Drought-Free For First Time In Quarter Century

While large parts of the West are still in dry or 
abnormally dry (yellow, orange and red shading),
California is drought and dry-weather free
for the first time in 25 years. 

 There are no areas of drought or abnormal dryness in California for the first time in 25 years, according to U.S. Drought Monitor.    

California is a big state, as we know, so it's easy for part of the state to get arid even if other large parts of the Golden State are downright sodden. 

But now, the state is gloriously wet. 

Recent autumn and winter storms statewide have erased every last vestige of dryness from California. Not so much as a dot on the map of California show up as dry. The last time this happened was in December, 2000.

It's a huge improvement from October. Back on October 14, nearly three quarters of California was at least abnormally dry. 

Within that abnormally dry region, more than a third of California was in drought. (If an area is designated as abnormally dry, it's on the cusp of a drought, or is emerging from a drought but not quite there.).  

Since October, drought and abnormal dryness retreated in California until this week, when everything became hunky-dory in terms of water supply. 

The U,S, Drought Monitor is released every Thursday and takes into account data up to the previous Tuesday. The latest Monitor was released January 8 and the data used was used through January 6.

The Drought Monitor takes into consideration factors like precipitation, snowpack, humidity, vegetation health, stream flow, soil moisture and lake levels to determine whether a particular area is in drought or not. 

There was one other brief period in recent years when California was drought-free. That was in 2023. But during that no-drought interlude, there were a few spots that were still abnormally dry. Overall, California has enjoyed exceptional wetness in the past few years.

This is in marked contrast to a little over a decade ago. Drought was so intense in 2012-2015 that there was a lot of die-off of conifer forests in the Sierra Nevada. The effects of that die-off are still being felt today. 

I have a feeling that California might not stay drought free for long. There's even a chance that abnormally dry patches could show up with this coming Thursday's report.  Or maybe as we get into the end of this month or February. It depends on whether a break in the rain that started in the middle of last week continues through this month and beyond. 

Through January 7, San Francisco got as much rain as usually falls in the entire month, which is great. But rainless days started there on January 8 and no rain is expected in northern California until about January 26 at the earliest.

After a relatively wet December, the first week of January continued with the showers in southern California,. However, the last of the rain there shut off on January 7 and no rain is forecast there for at least two weeks. 

Serious drought won't redevelop in California unless the entire rest of the winter remains dry. After about April, rainfall normally largely shuts down in most of California until late autumn or early winter. 

After Vermont Storms, Chances Of Renewed Flooding Not Worrisome. At Least For Now

Flooding in Winooski, Vermont on December 19, 2023,
The National Weather Service in South Burlington releases
bi-weekly flood outlooks in the winter and early spring. Today's
updated outlook offer not much to worry about. 

 Those bi-weekly flood outlooks the National Weather Service office in South Burlington puts out every other Thursday take on an added importance after all the extreme weather we'v'e had.  

I think a lot of us Vermonters are still feeling pretty raw after the epic floods last summer and the renewed, destructive floods in December. 

The latest flood outlook came out today and continues to show near normal flood potential for the next two weeks. That really means that we won't have any flooding, unless an unusually heavy rain storm wanders through. 

These bi-weekly flood outlooks take into consideration snowpack, soil moisture, water levels and weather forecasts. 

Opposing factors - some that enhance flood potential, others that diminish the chances - are competing against each other. 

We've had a wicked stormy weather pattern for weeks, months, really. So the ground is saturated, and stream flows are running a little high. 

But it's also been warm. That means there's not much river ice that could eventually cause ice jams.  Mountain snow cover and the amount of water in that snow is below normal.  Which reduces the chances that a lot of melting snow would add to runoff if we had a big rain storm. 

It's going to be cold the next few days, which means river ice will increase. But not all that much, because the cold weather doesn't look like it will last long. The deepest cold should just run from today through Sunday before an another warmup starts. 

We've also started a rather dry weather pattern yesterday, but forecasters think it will start to get a little wetter next week. Light snows are hitting some northern areas today, and more very light snow might fall Saturday. But that will add very little to the snow cover and potential runoff in the mountains. 

However, that warmer weather pattern expected to begin next week will be fairly active once again.  That means frequent chances of precipitation. The good news is at this point at least, I don't see signs of any kind of mega-storm sweeping through Vermont. So that will be a welcome break. 

There is, however, an elevated chance of flooding in southeastern New England, mostly because they have been even wetter than Vermont has over the past couple of weeks. 

There's also a somewhat higher than average chance of flooding out by Buffalo, New York and surrounding areas. They've been getting buried in lake effect snow this week. When it warms up, rain and thawing could produce flooding out there.