California is rapidly plunging back into drought, with severe conditions now existing in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties — home to one-fourth of the state’s population, a national drought monitor said Thursday. The weekly report released by the U.S. Drought Monitor, a project of government agencies and other partners, also shows 44 percent of the state is now considered to be in a moderate drought. It’s a dramatic jump from just last week, when the figure was 13 percent. “It’s not nearly where we’d like to be,” Frank Gehrke, a state official, acknowledged after separately carrying out manual measurements of winter snowfall in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which supplies water to millions of Californians in a good, wet year. Overall, the vital snowpack Thursday stood at less than a third of normal for the date. California lifted a drought state of emergency less than a year ago, ending cutbacks that at the peak of the drought mandated 25 percent conservation by cities and towns, devastated generations of native salmon and other wildlife, made household wells run dry in the state’s…

“But believe me, once you factor in cooking, all the water your dog slurps out of the bowl and onto the floor, and the occasional mini shower while standing over a bucket so you can reuse the water to flush the toilet, there’s not a lot left over.” In late January, Helen Zille, the head of the provincial government warned that if the taps do run dry, it would be "the disaster above all disasters".
Cape Town accesses its water from six major reservoirs that can collectively store 898,000 megalitres of water.
Day Zero occurs when the system’s stored water drops to 13.5 per cent of capacity.
David Olivier, a postdoctoral research fellow at Global Change Institute, says in 2015 the city of Cape Town was allocated 60 per cent of the Western Cape’s water supply system with nearly all the rest going to agriculture and livestock.
While there’s no suggestion that the situation in Cape Town will lead to conflict, that may not always be the case.
Something that Francesco Femia, co-president of the Centre for Climate Change and Security in the United States, says comes down to a crucial issue: climate change is not regarded as a national security issue in most places.
And Femia says water shortages will contribute to an increased likelihood of conflict unless major steps are taken by governments and international communities.
In the United States, the situation has reached a point where the country no longer has a set fire season.
National guards are brought in from other states and federal resources devoted to putting out the fires are not usually enough.
But are governments completely unprepared for the threat of climate change and water shortages, especially in growing, densely populated cities such as Cape Town?

Cape Town – Newlands will continue to host domestic franchise and international matches, despite the Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA) taking the unprecedented step on Wednesday of terminating all club and school cricket with immediate effect due to the water restrictions in place in the city.
Nabeal Dien, chief executive of the WPCA, said the board was unanimous in deciding to take this major step.
“We are only going to focus on provincial fixtures for women and men, while also hosting international events against India and Australia with the permission and assistance of the City of Cape Town,” Dien said.
Read: #WaterCrisis: Watch how family of 3 showers with 5 litres of water #WaterCrisis: Newlands Spring to move due to congestion, bad behaviour “We are constantly liaising with the city in regard to using less water at the ground.
All our public toilets around the ground are closed on non-match days.
WPCA had made the decision to halve the senior club’s season fixtures due to the City of Cape Town’s concerns of there being insufficient water to service municipal facilities in July last year.
It then further cut fixtures in October last year after minimal rain during the winter months.
“We also understand the impact it will have on all our clubs and juniors, especially in terms of dwindling interest due to the lack of game time.
It could have a serious impact.
"We have already seen the quality of our cricket drop over the course of the season due to the poor state of our fields and pitches,” Du Preez said.

Panola County issued an emergency ban on outdoor burning — the only area county so far to take that step.
"Based on the conditions with the wind, even though we’ve had some rain, the vegetation is dry enough that any fire could be hazardous," Gregg County spokesman Cpl.
Joshua Tubb said.
"We are asking folks not to do any outside burning."
"We’ve had 10 since Monday afternoon, nine of which were the result of outdoor burning that got away from people," he said.
One of those fires took out two buildings, Lake said.
Flatwoods Volunteer Fire Department Chief Jerry Coxan said his department on Tuesday had responded to two fires that burned about 18 acres overall.
Both of those fires ended up jumping over roads, Coxan said.
Lake cautioned Panola County residents about outdoor burning, even if it seems an unnecessary precaution.
"The wind just has it dried out, and it’s just dangerous."

Seven West Texas Mayors got together Wednesday to talk about key issues in the region.
Water, it’s a precious resource.
It’s no surprise that every mayor in the West Texas region is concerned about the possibility of a drought.
Planning from Midland City Officials in the 1970s invested in the T-Bar Ranch Pipeline.
They secured that water supply for the future and when this drought hit, Midland was one of the few communities that was well positioned to develop a resource that they already had," said Scott Hobbs, President, Protection/Hobbs & Todd.
The plan now is to decide what is the area’s next investment for supplying water.
“If you have lakes that have an abundance of water in them, instead of letting the water sit in those lakes and dry up through evaporation, start looking at taking that water and storing it underground," said Larson.
"Two percent of the state right now is under drought, a severe drought in the Panhandle.
Planning for the future and remembering the past is part of the plan to keep Midland and the region drought free.
Copyright 2018 KWES.

The 2017-18 wet season in California has been dry.
But the state’s reservoirs remain rather high, thanks to last winter’s heavy precipitation.
Sierra snow droughts may become more common in the future, according to recent studies.
McEvoy said November’s atmospheric river event brought heavy precipitation, but high snow levels with little snow accumulation below 8,000 feet in the northern Sierra.
So the concern is that if the Sierra snowpack remains low the rest of the wet season, snowmelt recharge in reservoirs would also be low when water use soars during California’s hot, dry summer.
The spring 2011-12 season ended as a drought year, but was saved from being one of the worst (driest) winters on record by a wet and snowy March."
McEvoy said hopes for a miracle March in the snow-lacking seasons of 2014 and 2015 turned up dry.
Snow Droughts are an Increasing Concern Sierra snow droughts may become more common in the future, according to recent studies.
A December 2017 blog post from Dr. Daniel Swain cited several other studies suggesting the "ridiculously resilient ridge" pattern (when the Pacific storm track is diverted north of California) is becoming more frequent in the heart of the state’s wet season.
With California’s ground water supply tapped during the five-year drought not nearly replenished, all eyes will be on the rest of this spring to see if another miracle March can stop the state from sliding into drought once again.

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One person is dead after a train carrying GOP lawmakers collided with a garbage truck in Virginia; Cape Town is dramatically rationing its water amid a severe drought.
We’re fine, but our train hit a garbage truck.
pic.twitter.com/0I9jOwHTmb — Rep. Greg Walden (@repgregwalden) January 31, 2018 An Amtrak train carrying members of the House and Senate to an annual GOP retreat accidentally hit a garbage truck on Wednesday afternoon, causing at least one fatality and other injuries.
[Rachael Bade via Twitter] Describing the impact of the crash, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) told reporters that it looked like the truck had been “cut in half.” [Washington Post / Martine Powers, Faiz Siddiqui, Ed O’Keefe, and Hawes Spencer] Former combat medic Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) tended to crash victims at the scene.
The GOP retreat will continue, although many lawmakers said they were shaken up by the incident.
[USA Today / Jessica Estepa and Michael Collins] Cape Town is trying to ration what little water it has left South Africa is experiencing a severe drought that’s pushing water levels in Cape Town to their breaking point, causing dramatic rationing.
If the water stops flowing through the taps, the city will have to set up ration sites where people can stand in line to get water each day.
Some people are criticizing the city government for not doing more to tap groundwater sources to mitigate the drought.

Fears of chaos as ‘Day Zero’, when piped water is cut off, could come within 3 months CAPE TOWN • It sounds like a Hollywood blockbuster: "Day Zero" is coming to Cape Town this April.
Taps in homes and businesses will be turned off until the rains come.
It is bracing for the effect on public health and social order.
"When Day Zero comes, they’ll have to call in the army," said Mr Phaldie Ranqueste, who was filling his white sport utility vehicle (SUV) with big containers of water at a spring where people waited in a long, anxious line.
It was not supposed to turn out this way for Cape Town.
Cape Town’s problems embody one of the big dangers of climate change: the growing risk of powerful, recurrent droughts.
The following year, C40, a collection of cities focused on climate change worldwide, awarded Cape Town its "adaptation implementation" prize for its water management.
But the city’s water conservation measures – fixing leaks and old pipes, installing meters and adjusting tariffs – had a powerful effect.
For years, Cape Town had been warned that it needed to increase and diversify its water supply.
The dams, which were full only a few years ago, are now down to about 26 per cent of capacity, officials say.

Moisture conditions are not likely to show much improvement in the South this spring.
( Author: Richard Heim, NOAA/NCEI ) There’s little doubt that it’s dry.
As of Jan. 25, the U.S. drought monitor showed 33% of the country was in some form of drought, according to Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension economist.
As farmers begin looking to planting season, concerns are already developing about available moisture, stockpiling forage and the potential for wildfire outbreaks.
In the southern half of the U.S., late January rains barely stemmed the area from falling farther behind in moisture.
According to the Jan. 25 U.S. Drought Monitor report, the county director for Wagoner and Mayes Counties in Oklahoma reported that all of the winter wheat crop was in either poor or very poor condition, and some producers were selling cattle early due to poor grazing fields.
Some farmers in the Southwest have been under pressure since summer 2017, as dry weather lowered yields for hay and soybeans, as well as deteriorating wheat and grazing conditions.
Several stations in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma report they have gone more than 100 days with no measurable precipitation, including Moriarty and Conchas Dam, N.M., Amarillo, Texas and Woodward, Okla. Kansas State University scientists and the National Interagency Coordination Center are warning producers in the central and southern Plains there is a higher than normal risk of wildfire through April.
While some areas of the U.S. are prone to dry conditions in the winter, the Southeast this is usually the recharge season.
But with below normal precipitation amounts, there is little evidence that moisture recharge is occurring.

Over the past 25 years, Somalia has experienced a cycle of protracted droughts, culminating in the most recent one in 2016 and 2017, when rains failed for three seasons in a row.
Tragically, drought images from the country are so familiar that they rarely make the headlines.
But the situation in Somalia has grown desperate.
To identify the causes of the drought, assess its impact and damage, and develop a recovery strategy, the Federal Government of Somalia requested a Drought Impact and Needs Assessment as well as a Resilience and Recovery Framework to map out the way forward.
In response to that call, over 180 experts from the Government of Somalia and international partners collected, validated and analyzed data and developed recovery strategies across 18 sectors and cross-cutting areas.
Launched this month, the Drought Impact and Needs Assessment estimates drought-related damages to be $1.02 billion and losses to be $2.23 billion, bringing the total effects of the drought to $3.25 billion.
Livestock – which account for 17 per cent of the country’s economic output – have also taken a hit.
The size of livestock herds has declined by up to 60 per cent.
Considering the lasting impact of the drought and the continuing food insecurity, humanitarian needs are likely to exceed $1.4 billion for the 2018 Humanitarian Response Plan.
UN Environment has worked with implementing partners to help them maximize the impact of the data collected for the Drought Impact and Needs Assessment.