California is recovering from the strong storms that have hit the state until this past Wednesday and which left five dead and several injured. In addition, more than one hundred thousand users were left without electricity and thousands more had to be evacuated and dozens of roads were flooded. But the rain has also had positive effects, such as relieving the persistent drought.
According to data from the US Drought Monitor for March 21, much of California remains under yellow (abnormally dry), salmon (moderately dry), and orange (severely dry) advisories. In the latter situation, we find Modoc County and parts of Inyo and San Bernardino Counties.
Despite these warnings, it is a stark contrast to the beginning of the hydrological year in September, they recall in Gizmodo, when more than 40% of the state was in extreme drought and more than 16% was in exceptional drought, the highest level in the American scale.
The rains have contributed to lowering this emergency situation, but also the snow registered in February, 200% above normal, its highest level in decades for that time of year, while southern California experienced a rare warning of blizzard.
“The series of nine atmospheric rivers in December and January helped alleviate the drought in the region. Currently the region is free of exceptional drought (D4), and only 3% of the region is in extreme drought (D3)”, explains the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) in its February analysis. English).
However, it is not enough to correct the “precipitation deficits accumulated over the last three years”, which only “undid in the coastal areas of southern California, central California and the Sierras of eastern Nevada with the storms of January 2023”.
The rains and snowfalls have alleviated to some extent the drought that California has been experiencing for years, but the forecasts of specialists are not optimistic. And they remember that the problems are far from being solved.
“Water problems have not gone away,” Jay Lund, deputy director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, told The New York Times. “They're just going more into the background,” he says.
In fact, this intense shift between dry and wet conditions is part of a “climate whiplash” that the West is experiencing thanks to climate change. In fact, the situation is expected to get worse, due to an increase in emissions, which will aggravate both droughts and the intensity of rainfall.
The official assures that, as the impacts of global warming become increasingly extreme, places like California will continue to move between dangerously intense storms and long-lasting droughts. In addition to voracious fires, like those that hit the state last summer.
