Wednesday March 29, 2023
Courthouse News Service —
With record and near-record snowpack up and down California, much of its multiyear drought has abated — but it’s never time to break out the balloons and party favors when it comes to water in the West.
During a California-Nevada U.S. Drought Monitoring Group seminar Monday, water experts were upbeat when talking about the massive snowpack, reservoirs spilling and more storms on the horizon.
“Overall, things are looking very good. And so that’s really nice to share after many of these kinds of updates where we tend to look at things going the other direction,” said Ben Hatchett of the Desert Research Institute. “So, the bottom line: Drought conditions have been improving and they continue to improve.”
A substantial portion of California has no drought, although areas still listed as dry to moderately dry include the California desert in the south and uppermost northern California in the southern Cascade Range region near the Oregon border.