Big storms put dent in California drought

The drenching rain and heavy snow that lashed California last week put a dent in the state's historic drought, according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday.

The percentage of the state in the worst drought category — "exceptional" drought — dropped from 55% of the state the previous week to 32% this week. That's the state's lowest percentage in six months.

"The week's greatest precipitation amounts fell on central and northern California, where many locations totaled 4 to 12 inches," meteorologist David Miskus wrote in the report.

Flooding along the Sacramento River was the highest since Dec. 31, 2005, he added.

The runoff from the rain "led to good capacity increases (6 to 10 percentage points) in major reservoirs across northern and central California," Miskus said. "However, they were still below the historical averages for Dec. 16."

Indeed, despite the "Pineapple Express" rain and snow last week, and another storm the week before, nearly the entire state — more than 98% — remains in some level of drought.

"It takes years to get into a drought of this severity, and it will likely take many more big storms, and years, to crawl out of it," Jay Famiglietti, a scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said earlier this week.

Nationally, about 30% of the contiguous U.S. remains in some form of drought, including the West, Southwest, southern Plains and Gulf Coast, according to the drought report.