The official report this morning from the Drought Monitor shows no change in the drought for Kern County, but that's not necessarily bad news.
A series of five storms earlier this month bringing 1.62" of rain to Bakersfield in just 10 days. Add that to an above-average amount of 2.41" rain in Bakersfield in December, and we have seen a big dent in the state's drought! In fact, you heard the big headlines last week that Northern California is actually out of the drought.
But this morning, while portions of Kern County remain in the worst level of "exceptional drought" (D4 level), we are seeing some recovery thanks to storm system #1 in this new series that moved on shore overnight. The two powerful storms coming in the next couple days will help us see some recovery in next week's drought report.
The official report from them reads: "Across the remaining areas of dryness and drought from the Rockies through the Intermountain West and Southwest, scattered to isolated areas of moderate to heavy precipitation weren’t enough to prompt any changes from last week. In contrast, very heavy precipitation ranging from 4 to 8 inches was recorded throughout the Sierra Nevada and isolated parts of the higher elevations in west-central and southwestern California. Elsewhere, 1.5 to 3.5 inches of precipitation fell in a swath from San Francisco southward to Monterey and eastward to the Sierra Nevada, and on areas along and near the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, including part of western Nevada. Given the protracted nature of conditions from much of the San Joaquin Valley southward to Mexico, no improvement was introduced there, including the persistence of D4 conditions in part of southwestern California. In sharp contrast, all D0 to D3 areas in the central Sierra Nevada and adjacent west-central Nevada were improved this week as a pattern of well-above-normal precipitation continued."
You can read the full report here.
