How Bad Is California’s Drought Ahead of Dry Season? (Published 2022) (2024)

Today marks the final day of California’s rainy season.

December, January and February are typically the wettest months in the Golden State, with 75 percent of the state’s annual precipitation falling between November and March.

Now we’re about to enter our dry season, and the drought is nowhere near over. Gov. Gavin Newsom this week, in an attempt to curb water usage, proposed banning businesses from watering their lawns. More than 93 percent of California is considered to be in severe or extreme drought.

“We are definitely very much at the tail end of our wet season in California,” Jeanine Jones, drought manager with the California Department of Water Resources, told me. “We are not expecting any significant amount of additional precipitation — certainly not something that would make any difference for the drought.”

Jones added: “In other words, most of what we’re going to get, we have gotten.”

So where does that leave us?

All of California’s major reservoirs are currently at below-average levels. The state’s snowpack on Wednesday was a dismal 39 percent of what it typically is this time of year, according to state data. Newsom hasn’t yet announced mandatory water cuts for Californians but faces increasing pressure to do so.

The water year in California runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 and is defined that way so that the winter rainy season falls within a single water year.