Photos: Before and after images show impact of Calif. drought

As a severe drought continues for a third straight year, water levels in California's lakes and reservoirs are reaching historic lows.

Aquifers have also been declining, and an estimated 5% of the state's irrigated farmland, from the Central Valley to Southern California, has been left dry and withering.

The increasingly dire water situation across the state is being compounded by unusual heat. The first half of 2014 has been the hottest in California in 120 years of record-keeping, according to records maintained by the National Climatic Data Center.

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