Just a Drop in the Bucket for Drought Relief

No, California’s drought isn’t over--not even close.

Six straight years of abnormally dry conditions have left the state’s key reservoirs less than half full. And this rainy season--already one-third over--remains much drier than average despite Monday’s downpour and snowstorm.

“We haven’t had enough rain to even begin to say we’re out of the drought,” said Dean Thompson, a spokesman for the State Drought Center in Sacramento.

“The storm was good news, but let’s not credit it with more than it is,” he said. “It was a better first week in December than we had last year, but not that much better. We’d need about three more storms in order to wind up with a normal December, and even then it wouldn’t make up for the bad November.”

In the next few days, some of the rain and snow that fell in the Sierra will run off into the Oroville reservoir, the main reservoir that feeds Southern California.

Precipitation in the Sierra Nevada, however, is still only about two-thirds of normal. Snowpack is about half of average.

Orange County imports half its water, much of it from the State Water Project that transports runoff from the Sierra Nevada. State water watchers have already warned that Southern California will only get 10% of its allocation because of the persistent drought.

The local rainfall--which has little effect on water supplies--is far above average after the latest storm. In an average year, Orange County gets about 12 inches of rain.

But most winds up as runoff into the ocean, although some is caught in basins that feed Orange County’s ground-water basin. The best news about the storm is that it will cut water consumption for a few days, since most of Orange County’s water is used on landscaping.