Parts of the city of Merced in northern California had been flooded by heavy rains.
Near-record rainfall has battered California for weeks, sparking floods and landslides because the state struggles to deal with a lot water.
But scientists say even this a lot precipitation will not reverse the western US state’s decades-long drought.
A parade of atmospheric rivers—large flows of moisture dragged by the skies from the oceans—has unleashed staggering volumes of rain and snow since December.
San Francisco bought extra rain within the final two weeks than it has accomplished in any comparable interval for 150 years, whereas the Sierra Nevada mountains have been buried in as a lot as 33 toes (10.5 meters) of snow.
Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, a analysis group that makes a speciality of water points, says it is troublesome to quantify precisely how a lot water has fallen from the sky.
“But we’re positively speaking about trillions of gallons (liters),” he instructed AFP.
“There’s little question that the water we’re getting now is a good assist in eliminating the drought… But it’s too quickly to say that the drought is over.”
“2023 could possibly be a wetter yr than regular,” he stated, however we’ll have to attend till the tip of winter to know for certain.
The western United States is in its twenty third yr of drought, with main rivers and reservoirs at a fraction of capability.
Much of the western US is greater than twenty years right into a punishing drought.
California’s largest reservoir, Lake Shashta, is barely 42 % full, official knowledge exhibits, even in spite of everything this rain.
The monster snowpack within the Sierra Nevada mountains—it’s presently twice what it usually is in January—is most useful, as a result of this gives the gradual…
2023-01-13 03:08:28 California downpours will not repair a long time of drought: scientists
Original from phys.org