US: El Nino storms bring much-needed rain and snow to California
That doesn’t mean the mood is dour because after four years of drought, finally seeing rain and snow fall at amounts that surpass recent years and even exceed the record books in some places is heartening.
“So far we aren’t losing any ground and it is close to a normal year that is better news than it has been in the last four,” said Rob Hartman, hydrologist in charge at the California Nevada River Forecast Center in Sacramento.
The entire state is still listed as either abnormally dry or in some form of drought, which is exactly where it was a year ago, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor in Lincoln, Nebraska.
For months, officials have been hopeful that the El Nino in the equatorial Pacific would alter storm tracks to soak California’s valleys and bury its mountain tops in snow. The way California’s climate works, most of its rain falls between November and March. Half of that comes between December and February.
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