SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KERO) — Governor Gavin Newsom expanded California’s drought emergency even with the storm earlier this week.
Experts say the rain, including a record single-day rainfall in Sacramento on October 24th, wasn't enough to end the two-year drought. Newsom warned that California needs to brace itself for an anticipated third drought year saying that it's critical to "redouble our efforts to save water."
According to the Associated Press, the deluge California received from the powerful atmospheric river made streams and waterfalls come alive while coating mountains with snow, but as the storm heads east it leaves the Golden State still deep in drought. The long plume of moisture pulled in from the Pacific capped a series of storms that abruptly switched the state’s immediate emergency concerns from wildfires to flooding.
But the long-term problem of drought linked to climate change was not washed away. State climatologist Michael Anderson says one storm this early does not predict the rest of the winter storm season, and a period of dry conditions is expected to return to California.
