Historic CA Drought Finally Ends

CALIFORNIA — California's most extreme drought in the last 126 years has come to an end with the U.S. Drought Monitor reporting all of the state is drought-free Thursday.

Atmospheric rivers washed over the state at the beginning of the year, which cut the drought down by half in March. The storms brought record snowfall and a snowpack lasting through August. That's when Tropical Storm Hillary drenched California with a year's worth of rain in a single day across parts of the state.

Now, forecasters predict heavy rains and some snow throughout the state next week, keeping drought conditions further at bay.

In the drought map released Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor, no part of the state showed drought conditions, with only about 5 percent being abnormally dry.

The three-year-long drought reported that 28 percent of the state was facing extreme drought conditions in December 2022. At that time, every single one of California's 58 counties was under a drought emergency proclamation.

The winter brought a dramatic shift to the state with a snowpack that brought California from the brink of drought disaster.

In Spring, forecasters predicted widespread drought relief and an end to the drought, which began in 2020, by the end of this year.

The coming winter is expected to further help the Golden State's lakes, reservoirs and groundwater levels thanks to a strong El El Niño weather pattern.

The Climate Prediction Center says with 100 percent certainty the strengthening El Niño weather pattern will last through early winter, and with 90 percent certainty that it will last until spring. The agency, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, expects the El Niño pattern to bring very rainy conditions to California this winter.

In most El Niño winters, the Golden State tends to be rainier than usual from January to March.

Even now, the Golden State is bracing for its next atmospheric-river fueled storms.

Next week, much of the state will see the first high-end rain event of the season, according to the National Weather Service.

One or two storms are expected to materialize around Wednesday next week that could dump anywhere from 2-5 inches of rain in areas of the state.

See also: Strong El Niño Is A Certainty: How Much Snow And Rain Can CA Expect?