SACRAMENTO - (INT) - The past 12-months have gone into the record books as one of California’s driest ever with no promise that it will get wetter.

After three years of drought, reservoirs are low, vast tracts of farmland lie fallow and some communities are scrambling for drinking water.

The State Department of Water Resources has reduced State Water Project deliveries to a record low five percent of requests.

Forest fires, brown lawns, food banks, groundwater legislation and water management debates all are results of a deepening drought.

The past 12 months have brought less than 60 percent of average precipitation. The state’s major reservoirs collectively held only 57 percent of average storage for the date, or about 36 percent of capacity.

California’s driest year on record 1977, was approximately five million acre-feet less than today but the state in that year had millions fewer people.

Predictions El Nino conditions that signal precipitation patterns in some areas of the world have waxed and waned, but meteorologists note that the phenomenon is not a reliable indicator of weather in California. That especially applies to the Northern Sierra watersheds that feed some of the state’s largest reservoirs.

Story Date: October 6, 2014