73% of California now in extreme or exceptional drought as water outlook tightens

California is in the middle of its driest two-year period since 1976-77. The state’s newly emerging drought, which is already increasing the risk of wildfires this summer and beginning to strain water supplies, is part of a wider drought unfolding across the American West.

After three wet or normal years in 2017, 2018 and 2019, conditions became dry last winter and worsened this winter. Large storms that the state counts to sweep across the Pacific Ocean and fill reservoirs didn’t arrive. They were mostly diverted north to Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon by high-pressure ridges. The result has been dramatic.

On Oct. 1, 2019, only 2% of California was in a drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NOAA and the University of Nebraska. But now 100% of the state is in some level of drought, with 73% in extreme or exceptional drought. That’s the highest level since February 2015, when 77% of California was parched in those categories during the state’s historic 2012-2016 drought.

Read the Article & Watch the Video from Mercury News

Visit the Drought Monitor Website

Watch KQED's Video of California Drought