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The California Drought Is Still Happening, and This Winter Won’t End It

La Niña is coming, and it likely means reduced snowfall for the state.
Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, California. Image: Murray Foubister/Flickr

If you live outside California, you've probably forgotten the state is in a drought.

But it totally is, and state officials announced recently that most of the rain from last winter's El Niño fell as rain rather than snow—bad news for the state's future drought outlook.

Even though state officials reined back mandatory water restrictions this summer, 60 percent of the state is still in a severe or extreme drought, the California Department of Water resources announced at the end of September. Part of that is because most of the state's northern reservoirs and lakes only got half as much rain and snowfall as usual.

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"Record warm temperatures created an early and below-average runoff that was in large part absorbed by parched soil before ever reaching the State's reservoirs," the state water department stated in a release. "The water content of the California Sierra snowpack, often referred to as 'the state's largest reservoir,' flows each spring into a series of above ground storage reservoirs that essentially serve as California's water savings accounts in order to meet the growing demands of an uncertain climate future."

The lack of a strong snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas may not seem like a big deal, but it could strangle California's water supplies. Northern California's snowpack provides a slow-release reservoir for nearly all of California during the summer.

Even with the deluge of rain from the recent El Niño, most reservoirs didn't have the storage space to hold all that water. To prevent overfilling their reservoirs or violating rules that require extra room be left in the case of major floods, some of that rain water had to be diverted to the Pacific Ocean. With snow, that water hangs around as pretty powder until residents need it most.

And with this winter expected to be relatively dry due to a predicted La Niña system, that's bad news bears for California.

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