After experiencing one of many wettest vacation seasons on document, nonetheless soggy California hit a serious milestone this week — having zero areas of irregular dryness for the primary time in 25 years.
This information, collected by the U.S. Drought Monitor, is a welcome nugget of reports for Golden State residents, who within the final 15 years alone have lived by way of two of the worst droughts on document, the worst wildfire seasons on document and probably the most damaging wildfires ever.
Proper now, the wildfire danger throughout California is “about as near zero because it ever will get,” and there’s seemingly no want to fret concerning the state’s water provide for the remainder of the yr, mentioned UC local weather scientist Daniel Swain. Presently, 14 of the state’s 17 main water provide reservoirs are at 70% or extra capability, in keeping with the California Division of Water Assets.
California’s final drought lasted greater than 1,300 days, from February 2020 to October 2023, at which level simply 0.7% of the state remained abnormally dry due to a sequence of winter atmospheric rivers that showered the Golden State with rain.
Previous to that, California was in a record-breaking drought cycle from December 2011 to September 2019.
However the final time 0% of the California map had any degree of abnormally dry or drought situations was all the way in which again in December 2000. In current weeks, a sequence of highly effective winter storms and atmospheric rivers have swept throughout California, dumping heavy rain that soaked soils, stuffed reservoirs and left a lot of the state unusually moist for this time of yr.
“That is actually a much less damaging climate winter than final yr was and than most of the drought years had been, so it’s OK to take that breather and to acknowledge that, proper now, issues are doing OK,” mentioned Swain. He famous, nevertheless, that “as we transfer ahead, we do count on to be coping with more and more excessive [weather] swings.”
Although it could appear counterintuitive, local weather change is forecast to result in each extra intense droughts and extra intense episodes of rainfall. It is because a hotter environment pulls extra moisture out of soils and vegetation, deepening droughts. On the similar time, a hotter environment holds extra water vapor, which is then launched in fewer, extra excessive rainstorms.
Scientists have coined a reputation for this phenomenon — the atmospheric sponge impact — which Swain mentioned is “hopefully an evocative visible analogy that describes why because the local weather warms we really are more likely to see wider swings between extraordinarily moist situations and very dry situations.”
A key instance of this impact is the climate sample within the run-up to the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires.
In 2022 and 2023, California skilled extraordinarily moist winters. Mammoth Mountain, for instance, set an all-time document for snowfall within the 2022-23 season.
However then Southern California skilled one of many driest intervals on document within the fall and winter of 2024, which enabled the following devastation of January 2025’s firestorm.
“We didn’t even must be in a notable multi-year drought to have that sequence of actually moist to essentially dry situations lead us to a spot the place the hearth danger was catastrophic,” mentioned Swain.
Analysis revealed within the aftermath of the hearth examines how this extraordinarily moist to extraordinarily dry climate sequence is very harmful for wildfires in Southern California as a result of heavy rainfall results in excessive progress of grass and brush, which then turns into plentiful gas in periods of maximum dryness.
Luckily, California needs to be away from water provide dangers and wildfire hazard for a number of months to come back, however in the long run, residents ought to count on to see extra of this climate whiplash, Swain mentioned.
