Enough rain to cause flooding has fallen in California and
snow has fallen in the Sierra mountains where reservoirs supply drinking water
to California’s cities.
But it’s not enough to end three years of drought, officials
say.
It is, however, welcome for farmers who depend on
irrigation. They grow half of North America’s fresh salad ingredients, but the
dought has forced them to idle about half a million acres of cropland this
year.
That’s costing farmers billions of dollars in lost revenues,
state officials say.
“Despite these recent storms, it would still have to rain
every other day until around May to reach average precipitation totals, and
even then we would still be in a drought due to the last two dry years,” said
Richard Stapler, spokesman for the California Natural Resources Agency.
