The U.S. Drought Monitor map released on Thursday shows 65% of California as abnormally dry and nearly 5% experiencing moderate drought.
“The drought and abnormally dry conditions being shown are mostly to capture the very poor snow season or ‘snow drought’ in the region,” Brian Fuchs, the University of Nebraska National Drought Mitigation Center climatologist who authored the recent map, wrote to SFGATE. He added: “The rain is good and beneficial, but the lack of snow over the winter for much of the West, including California, will lead to impacts down the road.”
Precipitation blanketed California during the winter, but the record-breaking heat meant it either arrived as rain or else melted away quickly. Preliminary data showed that this year’s April 1 snowpack was the second lowest on record, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
But rain and snow returned in April. In San Francisco, meteorologists for the National Weather Service have recorded almost 3.65 inches of rain so far in April, amounting to 228% of normal for the month so far. It’s a similar story for much of the Bay Area and even statewide, though SoCal received less rainfall by comparison. Meanwhile, Tahoe City got almost 19 inches of snowfall, hitting 234% of the historic average for this period in April. The snowfall also varied across the Sierra Nevada, but it was a decidedly snowy month overall.
“April’s definitely been wetter than normal, contrasting the very dry January and March we had,” Chris Smallcomb, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Reno office, told SFGATE. “But it’s not enough to make up for those deficits. It keeps things from getting worse if you will, potentially staving off the full melt of the snowpack for a little bit longer.”
To date, the total precipitation averaged statewide since October 2025 adds up to almost 21 inches of rain, amounting to 99% of normal. Meanwhile, the statewide snowpack stands at 19% of average. But because the storms trended south this year, the Southern Sierra has 29%, Central Sierra 25% and the Northern Sierra only 11%.
The areas showing moderate drought, which sits at level one on a four-point drought scale, include most of Lassen County and parts of Placer County, Nevada County, Sierra County, Plumas County, Modoc County, Del Norte County and Siskiyou County.
“Abnormally dry conditions and even drought creeping into Northern California isn’t surprising given that the northern portion of the state has received the least amount of snowfall,” Andrew Schwartz, the director of the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab, wrote to SFGATE. “The warm temperatures and relatively dry conditions up there will definitely have an impact on fire season.”