Did last week’s storm improve California drought conditions? Here’s what we know
Last week’s winter storm was enough to keep Northern California indoors, but not enough to significantly move the needle on the state’s drought conditions.
The U.S. Drought Monitor, in a weekly update published Thursday, reports the entire state at “abnormally dry” conditions. Close to 98% of the area is experiencing “moderate drought” conditions, 80.6% of the land is in “severe drought,” 35.5% of the state is in “extreme drought” and 7.16% of the state is suffering “exceptional drought conditions.”
This week’s numbers show improvement compared to last week.
“Moderate” conditions dropped by more than one percentage point and “severe” and “extreme” conditions statuses decreased more than four points. The proportion of the state with “exceptional” conditions decreased by more than five points.
Abnormally dry conditions or worse have overtaken California’s land, but Thursday’s update shows “widespread improvements to ongoing drought” across the West region including the golden state because of the large amounts of rain and snow.
Roughly 1.75 inches of precipitation, according to previous Bee reporting, fell last week in downtown Sacramento. The Sacramento-area suburbs received heavier amounts of rain between 1.2 to 2.64 inches of rainfall in Davis, Roseville, Rocklin, Citrus Heights and Folsom.
“Hefty rainfall amounts in some of the coastal mountain ranges of California,” U.S. Drought Monitor wrote in a Thursday statement “caused high streamflow, which lessened precipitation deficits and led to localized improvements.”
Sierra Nevada’s snowpack
Don’t forget about the snow.
Nearly 6 feet of snow fell across the Sierra Nevada, National Weather Service wrote Monday on its Twitter page, with the most snow at Sierra at Tahoe ski resort (5.8 feet) situated west of South Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe-area ski resorts including Soda Springs, Palisades Tahoe and Sugar Bowl, plus Castle Peak mountain all received around 4 to 5 feet of snow.
Snowpack refers to the snow covering the grounds of mountain areas until warmer weather melts it down.
This story was originally published December 15, 2022 at 2:36 PM.
CORRECTION: 5.8 feet of snow fell at Sierra at Tahoe during the winter storm.