By Matthew Renda (CN) — Thursday marks the final day of the water year in California, and it was one for the record books — and not just because much of the state saw less than 50% of average rainfall. “While the water year that ends is our second driest on record, the manifestation of record-high...

By Nick Cahill SACRAMENTO (CN) — California water regulators on Tuesday ordered thousands of farmers and ranchers to stop pulling from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in the latest escalation of the state’s bitter drought. The State Water Resources Control Board blamed the unprecedented emergency...

The California Department of Water Resources performed a snow survey Wednesday, the results of which were decidedly mixed. “The state experienced a series of storms over the past couple of weeks that dropped significant amounts of rain and snow,” said Sean de Guzman, the water department’s chief...

By Matthew Renda (CN) — The first snow survey in California was ambiguous. While it showed the mountains just southeast of Lake Tahoe contains a snowpack that is approximately average for this point of the winter, the automatic snow sensor network shows an impoverished snowpack throughout the Sierra,...

A report by the U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday confirmed what anyone living in California or the Southwest already know: We need rain. Badly. “Abnormal dryness and drought are currently affecting over 120 million people across the United States including Puerto Rico — about 38.9% of the population,”...

California received some much-needed precipitation in March and April, a reprieve from a winter of clear skies, but it was not enough to head off the state’s expanding drought. In its final snow survey of the season, the California Department of Water Resources reported the Sierra snowpack is only...

It’s been a dry winter: Much of California remains in abnormally dry conditions and several regions in the northern half of the state are experiencing drought, according to a Thursday report from the U.S. Drought Monitor. Despite a series of late-season storms giving the thirsty state much needed...

The California drought situation worsened in February to cover nearly a quarter of the Golden State, amid the likelihood of no measurable rain across a wide swath of Northern California for the first time in recorded history. A report published Tuesday shows moderate drought in Central California. According...

The recent and historic California drought had a direct connection to a higher rate of forest die-off, according to a study released Monday. The study, published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience, examined the severe dry spell that plagued California, particularly the southern areas of the...

By Matthew Renda The Sierra Nevada snowpack stands at 162 percent of average, California water managers said on Tuesday following the final measurement of the water year. The snowpack measurement – which the California Department of Water Resources conducts around the first of each month of winter...