California Enters Driest Recorded Three-Year Stretch of Drought

California is starting its new water year with the driest conditions on record, the state’s Department of Water Resources said Monday.

The Golden State’s drought conditions have made water years from 2020 to 2022 the driest three-year stretch, breaking a record set less than a decade earlier.

• Instead of a typical wet season/dry season model, warmer weather fueled by climate change has reduced snowpacks and constricted California’s water supply.
• “Now we’re not seeing the landscape go into hibernation and kind of sleep through the winter,” the state climatologist, Michael Anderson, said. Warmer weather means less snow and more rain, which ...