Not dry, but drought remains an issue, mid-wet season 2026

By Jay Lund

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People in and out of California love the attention that comes with declaring droughts and the end of droughts. Given the many types and locations of droughts in California, it is rare to have no drought anywhere in the state. Yet, for the last two weeks, the UC Drought Monitor has reported that, for the first time in 20 years, by their criteria, no part of California is in “drought”. This is good, but not that good.

Alas, having a drought nowhere does not mean it is wet everywhere – only that it is not dry. Similarly, the absence of drought anywhere does not mean that this is one of California’s wettest years, or even that this year could not become a drought year (although it is less likely). California is just not dry right now. We are only midway through California’s wet season (October – March). Overall, water conditions are very good now, but much could change in the coming weeks and months.

Let’s look at water conditions in California now, about halfway into the 2026 wet season.

Precipitation and Snowpack. Today, Northern California is in excellent shape for precipitation, with 132% of average precipitation for this time of year. The rest of the state is also in relatively good condition. But as can be seen in the figure (Figure 1), if we had as little additional precipitation for the rest of the year as seen in some of the driest years, this year overall would not be a wet year, but a somewhat dry year. California’s wet season is fickle. It is too soon to declare victory.

Figure 1. Northern California Precipitation by water year.

In terms of snowpack, this year’s storms have been warmer, so there is less than average snowpack despite higher than average precipitation. As seen below (Figure 2), we are at about 66% of California’s average snowpack overall, but only about 50% of the average for Northern California, so far. We have had far worse snowpacks at this time of year, but, in contrast to precipitation, some parts of California are in a modest “snow drought.” And higher temperatures and sunny days will be evaporating some of our nice precipitation totals before they reach streams and groundwater.

Figure 2. Snowpack so far this water year relative to other years.

Reservoirs. California’s reservoirs are in about as good a shape as possible for this time of year. Any fuller, and the reservoirs would be at greater risk of contributing to floods. The big exception to this are the immense reservoirs on the lower Colorado River. These reservoirs have over 50 maf (million acre-feet) of capacity (more than ALL surface reservoirs entirely in California), and they are currently at 33% of total capacity. The lower Colorado River has been overdrafting its reservoirs for about 40 years, in quantities similar to how much California overdrafts ALL its aquifers.

Commonly, a reservoir is seen as coming out of drought when it “spills” water because it can store no more. Many California reservoirs are spilling. But by this metric, the drought is not over for the Colorado River reservoirs, which supply much of southern California.

Groundwater. Recent wetter years have been good, but groundwater in much of California has not recovered from decades of groundwater overdraft. In Fall 2025, there was mostly no significant change in groundwater level from the previous year. There has, however, been some very good improvement from the last 10 years (Figure 3), although some wells which continue to decline substantially.

In parts of California, California’s groundwater drought continues. In some places, the “drought” is now a century old (we call it overdraft).

Figure 3. 10-year changes in California groundwater levels.

Native species. The native ecosystems of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta continue to decline. These have not recovered from drought.

Media reports indicate that Klamath River returns appear to be good, as reported by Caltrout and Siskiyou News.

I await the day that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) provides systematic tracking information on salmon returns across the state. Someday. I hear that it might happen. The data exist, but seem to be unavailable in a timely way. Maybe someone else will get to this first. So far, one of the best sources seems to be presented by the University of Washington.

Floods. It is wonderful to have had so much precipitation without floods again this year. But the downside of having reservoirs be so full is that it increases the risk of potential floods from any truly major storms or a series of atmospheric rivers. This is mitigated somewhat these days by improvements in forecasting up to perhaps a week, so that pre-storm releases can sometimes lower reservoirs to better accommodate potential flood flows (where there is an adequate channel and release capacity downstream).

Water managers always need to worry about both floods and drought, regardless of conditions. Times without floods or droughts are times prepare for future floods and droughts. Most drought and flood management must happen before these events (as is true for most disasters, including earthquakes and wildfires).

Conclusions. Droughts are slippery to define and quantify. An “end of drought” finding is good news, and we all welcome improvements in water conditions. But California’s wet season is fickle, and we are only half way through, with some likelihood of returning to drier conditions in the coming months. Even so, some aspects of drought have long tails and are likely to remain, such as groundwater and Colorado River overdraft, and native species depletions.

The “end” of drought or flood in California is a cause for some relief, but even more, it should be a call for non-complacent focus on reasonably preparing for the next drought or flood, which will arrive all too soon.

We must remember that we live in California.

Serious thought and action occur between complacency and panic.

About the Author

Jay Lund continues to joyously fail retirement as an Emeritus Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California – Davis, where he is also a seasonal Vice Director at the Center for Watershed Sciences. (Sailing season and truly dry weather starts in a few months!)

Further Reading

Lund, J. (2015), “The banality of California’s ‘1,200-year’ drought,” CaliforniaWaterBlog.com, posted on September 23, 2015.

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