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California is Free of Drought for The First Time in 25 Years

By Clara Harter

1. After experiencing one of the wettest holiday seasons on record, California hit a major
2. milestone this week — having zero areas of abnormal dryness for the first time in 25 years. The
3. data, collected by the U.S. Drought Monitor, is a welcome nugget of news for Golden State*
4. residents, who in the last 15 years alone have lived through two of the worst droughts on record,
5. the worst wildfire seasons on record, and the most destructive wildfires ever. Right now, the
6. wildfire risk across California is “about as close to zero as it ever gets,” and there is likely no
7. need to worry about the state’s water supply for the rest of the year, said UC climate scientist
8. Daniel Swain. Currently, 14 of the state’s 17 major water supply reservoirs are at 70% or more
9. capacity, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
10. California’s last drought lasted more than 1,300 days, from February 2020 to October 2023,
11. at which point just 0.7% of the state remained abnormally dry, thanks to a series of winter
12. atmospheric rivers that showered the Golden State with rain. Before that, California was in a
13. severe drought from 2012 through 2016. But the last time 0% of the California map had any
14. level of abnormally dry or drought conditions was all the way back in December 2000. In recent
15. weeks, a series of powerful winter storms and atmospheric rivers have swept across California,
16. dumping heavy rain that soaked soils, filled reservoirs, and left much of the state unusually wet
17. for this time of year. “This is certainly a less destructive winter weather than last year was,”
18. Swain said. He noted, however, that “as we move forward, we do expect to be dealing with
19. increasingly extreme [weather] swings.”
20. Though it may seem counterintuitive, climate change is forecast to lead to both more
21. intense droughts and more intense episodes of rainfall. This is because a warmer atmosphere
22. pulls more moisture out of soils and plants, deepening droughts. At the same time, a warmer
23. atmosphere holds more water vapor, which is then released in fewer, more extreme rainstorms.
24. Scientists have coined a name for this phenomenon — the atmospheric sponge effect — which
25. Swain said is “hopefully an evocative visual analogy that describes why, as the climate warms,
26. we actually are likely to see wider swings between extremely wet conditions and extremely dry
27. conditions.” A key example of this effect is the weather pattern in the run-up to the devastating
28. Palisades and Eaton fires last year.
29. In 2022 and 2023, California experienced extremely wet winters. Mammoth Mountain, for
30. example, set an all-time record for snowfall in the 2022-23 season. But then Southern California
31. experienced one of the driest periods on record in the fall and winter of 2024, which enabled the
32. subsequent devastation of January 2025’s firestorm. Much of the West has seen
33. warmer-than-average temperatures and relatively little snow so far this winter. Research
34. published in the aftermath of the fire examines how this extremely wet to extremely dry weather
35. sequence is especially dangerous for wildfires in Southern California because heavy rainfall leads
36. to high growth of grass and brush, which then becomes abundant fuel during periods of extreme
37. dryness. Fortunately, California should be clear of water supply risks and wildfire danger for
38. several months to come, Swain said, but in the long term, residents should expect to see more
39. of this weather whiplash.

*California can be referred to as “The Golden State”.

(Available at: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-01-09/california-has-no-areas-of-dryness-firsttime-in-25-years – text specially adapted for this test).