Thursday March 27, 2025
Redding Searchlight —
Northern Californians can breathe easy knowing the region is completely out of drought, according to weather experts.
The last patches of unusually dry areas — remnants of drought that plagued counties along the Oregon and Nevada borders in 2024, and almost all North State counties from 2020 to 2023 — were wiped out by this year’s wet winter. That’s according to data taken at the end of each March by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
That happened in most counties even before places like Shasta County got the 19th wettest February on record, stretching back 131 years, according to the data service, a cooperative of federal agencies that includes the National Drought Mitigation Center.
However, drought maps also reported parts Southern California are in extreme drought, boosting fire risk this spring. That’s after Southern California was already devastated by wildfires in winter.