{"id":128362,"date":"2026-01-10T20:02:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T20:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/128362\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T20:02:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T20:02:21","slug":"california-is-completely-free-of-drought-for-the-first-time-in-25-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/128362\/","title":{"rendered":"California is completely free of drought for the first time in 25 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following winter storms that lashed California with rain and snow<\/a> in recent weeks, the state is completely free of drought for the first time in 25 years, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The last time California had no regions considered \u201cabnormally dry\u201d or in drought conditions was in December 2000.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s drought-free status is welcome news for water managers, but residents in some regions are still recovering from a series of punishing atmospheric river storms that brought intense rain and flooding.<\/a> Areas in higher elevations, meanwhile, have contended with heavy snow and risk of avalanches.<\/p>\n

Over the course of about a week beginning Dec. 20, parts of Northern California received up to 7 inches of precipitation, while up to 4 inches fell in southern parts of the state. Then, as New Year\u2019s Day approached, the state was hit once more with several rounds of heavy rain<\/a> and flooding. Together, the events pushed California\u2019s 17 major reservoirs to 129% of their average levels, according to state records<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/p>\n

Steve Wogoman carries Christmas presents from his granddaughter’s flooded home following heavy rains Dec. 22 in Redding, Calif. (Noah Berger \/ AP)<\/p>\n

The wet winter has boosted California\u2019s snowpack<\/a>, which is crucial to its water supply, though the snowpack is still lower than average. The California Department of Water Resources said at the end of December that readings from 130 monitoring stations throughout the Sierra Nevada indicated a statewide snow-water equivalent (a measure of the amount of water in the snowpack) of 6.5 inches, which is 71% of the average for this time of year.<\/p>\n

Officials remain hopeful, however, given that California\u2019s biggest snow producing months are typically January, February and March.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is still early in the season and our state\u2019s water supply for this year will ultimately depend on a continued cadence of storms throughout winter and early spring,\u201d Angelique Fabbiani-Leon, state hydrometerologist for the Department of Water Resources, said in a statement<\/a> Dec. 30.<\/p>\n

The Sierra Nevada snowpack usually supplies around 30% of California\u2019s yearly water needs.<\/p>\n

Unlike California, other parts of the West \u2014 including Nevada, Utah and Colorado \u2014 are grappling with persistent dry conditions and snow levels that are far below usual.<\/p>\n

Snowpack in Utah is at record lows, with 93% of the state currently in drought conditions, according to the Utah Division of Water Resources<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, more than 80% of monitoring stations are recording a \u201csnow drought,\u201d according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s National Integrated Drought Information System.<\/a> The term refers to snow-water equivalent readings that fall below the 20th percentile.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following winter storms that lashed California with rain and snow in recent weeks, the state is completely free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,642,1246,266],"class_list":{"0":"post-128362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-drought","12":"tag-heavy-snow","13":"tag-northern-california"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}