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 new figures from national drought monitors came amid growing concern among state officials about another dry winter.
The region is now seeing record-setting heat.
The readings detailed Thursday show the drought has worsened to the severe category in 5 percent of the state.
However, Thursday’s figures were far better than those during the peak of the state’s epic dry spell, when 99.9 percent of California was in some stage of drought, and nearly half in the highest category.
But the drought never really seemed to lift in some Southern California areas, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at University of California, Los Angeles, noted this week.
When it finally rained, the scorched earth turned into mudslides that sent earth, water and boulders roaring through neighborhoods.
In California’s Central Valley, the nation’s richest agricultural producer, government officials had to install water systems during and after the five-year drought for small towns such as East Porterville after household wells ran dry.
"it never ended," she said of the drought in her area.
Electronic sensors showed statewide snow levels at 27 percent of normal.