SOUTHLAND – (INT) – As winter enters its final month, Mother Nature is showing her weather extremes.

After some generous rain and snowfall in November and December, drought is returning to the state. Since mid-December, less than half of normal precipitation has fallen across most of California. In Riverside, January generated less than one-tenth-of-an-inch, some 2-inches below normal and most Inland Empire rain gauges have shown no improvement this month. With high pressure dominating the Eastern Pacific shunting storms into the Pacific Northwest, the longer-range outlook shows little change.

Precipitation summed over the past 6 months is notably below normal over most of California and the mountain snowpack is less than 60 percent of normal for the date in the central and southern Sierra Nevada.

California emerged from the last drought that covered 5-7 years several months ago.

Climatologists underscore California’s historically highly variable weather and recent months were verification of that

Story Date: February 27, 2020