It would be more accurate to say that dry periods in california are just "normal weather" and the occasional wet periods are the abnormal weather.

I enjoy the rare periods when it's sunny in the UK, but I wouldn't refer to a typical cloudy period as a "sun drought" because the sun is what's abnormal

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Maps/CompareTwoWeeks.aspx

(*Technically slivers of the state in the far north/south were 'abnormally dry' in 2024, a small difference from 2026)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2026/01/18/winter-dro...

We were also down to running sprinklers once a week (lawns are silly), but have had them off entirely for a bit now.

“I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The live oaks got a crusty look and the sage-brush was gray. The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley. The cows would grow thin and sometimes starve to death. People would have to haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away. And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.”

And where 90% of the water for its huge capital city-district (Los Angeles) is not even sourced locally (say, by desalination of seawater, as it is a coastal city), but it's instead piped from hundreds of miles away, while banning the villages at the source locations from using the local rivers/lakes as all that precious water gets piped away to feed the thirsty city-district (Los Angeles)?

Are these done in California?

“… free of doughnuts …”

Definitely had me clicking.

…but we’re still fucked and don’t you dare forget it!

> Recent storms have brought snow to the Sierra Nevada mountains, but the state’s snowpack remains below average. According to the Department of Water Resources, the snowpack now stands at 89% of average for this time of year.

> Much of the West has seen warmer-than-average temperatures and relatively little snow so far this winter. The snow in the Rocky Mountains remains far below average, adding to the strains on the overtapped Colorado River, a major water source for Southern California.

Refilling the reservoirs is nice and all, but this is still essentially a payday loan out of the future.

One of the complexities of global warming is that it makes weather more extreme in all directions. It can be true that the same stretch of ground can be more susceptible to flooding in the same year it's more susceptible to drought.

If we simply built like the people who first came to california did we would never have water shortages again.

Any water shortage is a 1:1 failure of the state to do the clear and obvious task needed.

https://www.grants.ca.gov/grants/gfo-23-311-advancing-precip...

Example of a recent $2.5M grant.

This information is often buried in budgets under applied research grants. I suspect they obscure this information because it could create liabilities, for example, if gov funded rain seeding creates flooding and human death are they partially responsible for this?