Winter Storms Help Clear Droughts in California

Drought conditions in California seem to be easing up thanks to the winter storms. It was officially stated that less than half the state now remains abnormally dry.

According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen feet of snow has fallen and blanketed California’s inland mountains in the past two weeks.

It has even pushed the snow pack in the central and Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains to twice the amount of a normal year. It was to the point where it buried neighborhoods, collapsed roofs, trapped residents, and knocked out power

California has been in an extreme drought for three consecutive years, according to a Washington Post article. Karla Nemeth, the director of California’s department of water resources said, “We could not be more fortunate to have had this kind of precipitation after three very punishing years.”

California is greatly benefiting from this storm considering their drought, which is now easing, it has also affected the communities that live on top of the mountains so the storm hit them hard. According the the Washington Post, a man named Andrew Schwartz  said “That storm was genuinely the worst one I’ve seen in my life.”

According to thehealthyjournal.com, snow does fall in Los Angeles, but rarely, in the past 20 years or so, snow has fallen three times. Measurable snow fall in Los Angeles occurs only once every two decades. There has been measurable snow a couple times in 1182, 1932, and 1949. News reports recorded snowfall elsewhere in Los Angeles, but only in certain years and then it stopped for 54 years running.

On the other hand Ewing, New Jersey has rarely gotten any snowfall this year. The average is 21 inches of snow per year, according to nj.com, but this year we only got one inch. Although snowstorms have hit heavily in Northern New Jersey with up to six inches in some places, locally, we have not been affected much by snow.