California is suffering from a record drought, the worst in the state’s history, and more than half of the state is classified as being in "exceptional drought," which is the most extreme level.
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U.S. Drought Monitor report released Tuesday showed 58.41 percent of the state is in the top drought category, while the entire state falls in the “severe” drought classification. That “exceptional drought” number was just 36.49 percent a week ago.
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Climatologist Mark Svoboda said this is the first time such a large percentage of the state has been in such severe drought conditions.
“You keep beating the records, which are still all from this year,"
Svoboda, with the National Drought Mitigation Center, told the Los Angeles Times.
The state is also running short of water in its reservoirs, the drought report said. Although numbers still aren’t as low as they were in 1977, the Drought Monitor Report said reservoirs were at 60 percent of historical average. In 1977, that number was 41 percent.
“It’s hard because the drought is not over and you’re in the dry season. Our eyes are already on next winter,” Svoboda told the Times. “Outside of some freakish atmospheric conditions, reservoir levels are going to continue to go down. You’re a good one to two years behind the eight ball.
“The bottom line is, there’s a lot of ground to make up,” he said. “Mother Nature can’t put it back in that fast.”
The Drought Monitor said California is short more than a year’s worth of reservoir water, or 11.6 million acre-feet, for this time of year.
California has put legislation in place that allows local authorities to find people who waste water up to $500 per day.
Farmers and ranchers are drilling deep — up to 2,000 feet — to find water
in anticipation of worsening drought conditions, the Times reported in a separate article. The businesses that drill and put in pumps are overwhelmed and can’t meet demand.
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