California: Driest January in 38 Years; Drought Across 99.57% of State

After record-breaking snowfall in December, California suffered its driest January in 38 years, and the second-driest in the state’s recorded history, making the ongoing drought even worse, with 99.57% of the state officially in drought.

The San Jose Mercury News reported Friday:

California had its driest January since 1984, with the lack of rain and snow pushing drought conditions across the most populous U.S. state to nearly 100%.

January was the second driest start of the year on records going back to 1895, said Ahira Sanchez-Lugo, a climatologist with the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Last month’s dryness was only surpassed by January 1984. With California’s rainy season starting to wind down, forecasters don’t see any relief to the dryness through the next three months. Drought now grips 99.57% of California, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Drought across California and the U.S. West stresses water resources, raises wildfire risks and can lead to hotter temperatures because the sun’s energy can go into heating air and not evaporating soil moisture when the land is parched. California is currently struggling with its worst megadrought in 1,200 years, according to a report published this week by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles, Columbia University and NASA.

In December, as Breitbart News reported, massive winter snowstorms dumped snow on the Sierra Nevada and other mountain ranges in the state, raising hopes that there might be relief from the drought, now in its third year.

But the dry spell since the beginning of the year has dampened those prospects. And once again, California faces the prospect of water shortages with little to no progress on any proposals for expanding water storage or desalination, as  the Democrat-run state largely squandered the opportunity the wet years of 2017-2019 provided to prepare for future droughts.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.