{"id":224088,"date":"2026-01-08T23:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T23:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/224088\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T23:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T23:52:15","slug":"drought-monitor-california-has-zero-areas-of-dryness-for-the-1st-time-in-25-years-after-winter-storms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/224088\/","title":{"rendered":"Drought Monitor: California has zero areas of dryness for the 1st time in 25 years after winter storms"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Incredible news for California’s water supply entering the new year – not a single square mile of California is categorized as dry for the first time in 25 years, according to the latest US Drought Monitor.<\/p>\n

\"Map<\/a><\/p>\n

Map of California’s Drought Monitor showing dryness from North to South.<\/p>\n

As of December 30, 2025, California is effectively out of drought across almost the entire state, where 0% of the state’s total area is experiencing drought conditions, according to the California Drought Monitor on CalMatters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Bay Area cities above normal rainfall levels, CA snowpack makes massive leap after week of storms<\/a><\/p>\n

Final storms in December 2025 pulled nearly 100% of the state out of drought.<\/p>\n

As of January 8, 2026, measurements showed virtually no dryness remaining, marking an “exceptionally wet period” that has filled the state’s reservoirs to a healthy level.<\/p>\n

RELATED: No widespread drought is expected in California for the next 2 years, forecasters say<\/a><\/p>\n

This news is the culmination of several years of strong rainfall.<\/p>\n

The Golden State was first declared drought-free in years in 2023 after a winter deluge of storms and atmospheric rivers soaked the state in November and improved forecasts for 2025.<\/p>\n

\"Table<\/a><\/p>\n

Table of highlights for the latest Drought Monitor findings.<\/p>\n

We have not had a similar scenario where there was not a single dry patch on that map for California since December 2000.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Experts examine how climate change will create more king tides in Bay Area<\/a><\/p>\n

This means if you’re younger than 25, you’ve always been living in a world where California is either entering or recovering from drought.<\/p>\n

Current systemwide reservoir capacity sees seven of 12 major state-owned reservoirs at 75% or higher capacity.<\/p>\n

\"Now<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Incredible news for California’s water supply entering the new year – not a single…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[134160,273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-224088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-134160","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}