Los Angeles actually receives 25% of its annual precipitation in February, but with one week into the month, things aren’t exactly going as one would expect.
Below is a closer look at why.
Weather highlights: Drought worsening across the Southwest U.S. Fire weather for most valleys and mountains of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties – avoid outdoor burning this week High temperatures of as much as 10 to 20 degrees above normal across Southern California Dry warm weather continues to dominate across much of California this winter.
This anomalous weather scenario actually extends beyond California well into a large area of the southwestern U.S. where the drought is even more dramatic.
The weather pattern in coming weeks not exactly a wet one A solid high pressure ridge is expected to continue dominating the weather pattern across much of the west including California.
It is currently in a phase that does not show any symptom of changing, favoring the presence of a potent high pressure ridge over the west coast, with little precipitation and above normal temperatures for much of California.
RELATED: Rocky Mountain Drought Another Problem for Southern California Water Supply Despite the MJO mode forecasted, some areas of California will still receive some precipitation.
However, the general weather scenario across the state will most likely be one marked by dry weather and higher than normal temperatures.
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PHILLIPS STATION, Calif. — California’s brief escape from severe drought has ended after scientists declared more than 40 percent of the state in moderate drought and water officials confirmed lower-than-normal snowpack in the Sierra Nevada.
Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, which hold nearly a quarter of the state’s population, were rated in severe drought.
During a week of rainless skies and some record-high temperatures in Southern California, water officials also trekked into the Sierra Nevada on Thursday and manually measured the vital snowpack, which stood at less than a third of normal for the date.
“It’s not nearly where we’d like to be,” Frank Gehrke, a state official, said of the snow, which supplies water to millions of Californians in a good, wet year.
‘We need rain’ In Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, which are about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, the lack of rain and dry vegetation fueled a December wildfire that grew to be the largest recorded in state history.
“I know we need rain, but another mudslide would be awful,” said Santa Barbara restaurant hostess Cayla Stretz.
Survivors in her area are still digging out homes, many beaches and roads are closed by mud, and business is down in the beach town, Stretz said.
During the peak of the state’s dry spell, 99.9 percent of California was in some stage of drought and nearly half fell into the very highest category.
Cutbacks at the peak of the five-year state drought mandated 25 percent conservation by cities and towns.
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 dried.

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.

While snow and bitter cold have dominated our discussion of weather so far this winter, a moderate drought has been quietly creeping into central Virginia over the past several weeks.
Friday’s predicted rain will be helpful for the low streams, lakes and rivers, but it will take more than one soaking storm to stave off groundwater shortages and agricultural impacts during the next growing season.
The rest of the state is classified as abnormally dry, or one step away from showing drought impacts.
A recent report from Virginia’s interagency Drought Monitoring Task Force noted that drinking ponds for livestock are "nearing critically low levels," according to some producers in the western part of the state.
As of Jan. 4, mandatory water-use restrictions remained in place for customers of the Louisa County Water Authority, with voluntary restrictions advised in Strasburg and Front Royal.
No part of Virginia has any sort of short-term surplus, but the Tidewater region has been a bit wetter (and snowier) compared with the other regions.
That’s less than one-third of the typical Dec. 1-Jan. 11 amount of 4.33 inches.
The last time Richmond had less rainfall over the same period on the calendar was during the winter of 1985-86.
Some of this winter’s precipitation total came from rain, and some of it was the liquid equivalent of the snow.
On average, most of our snowstorms are a bit wetter, with a ratio of 11 to 12 inches of snow per 1 inch of liquid water.

Most of the Sacramento Valley will get at least a half-inch of rain over the weekend, with heavier rainfall expected in Auburn, Placerville and Oroville, the National Weather Service said Thursday.
Light rain was expected to begin in the Sacramento area by Thursday evening, with heavier precipitation forecast for late Friday into Saturday.
The weather service said a slight chance of rain was expected for Sunday and Monday.
Another storm was expected to hit the region next Thursday.
Up to an inch of rain was forecast for fire-ravaged communities like Santa Rosa and Redwood Valley, where officials feared that precipitation could do more harm than good.
California went through La Niña conditions last winter – and wound up with the rainiest season on record in the northern half of the state.
His long-range forecast for the season?
The city of Sacramento’s winter watering schedule, which began Wednesday, restricts outdoor watering to once a week, either Saturday or Sunday.
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Oroville Dam spillway is ready for rainy season Repair milestone: The spillway repair at the Oroville Dam "is indeed ready to safely handle winter flows if needed,” says Grant Davis, director of the Department of Water Resources.

After the winter of 1996-97 — arguably the worst winter for resident wildlife in the last half century — I remember hearing upland game biologist Lowell Tripp, and wildlife division chief Randy Kreil, now both retired, repeat over and over again the basic fact that North Dakota was on the northern tier of the pheasant range and winters “like this” are going to take their toll.
They also related how such a winter probably wasn’t a one-time phenomenon, which proved true a decade later, from December 2008 to spring 2013.
A simple look at historical numbers provides some insight into how that winter of 1996-97 affected North Dakota wildlife populations.
Making it through the winter is the first step, but the stress of trying to survive doesn’t end there.
“There’s nothing easy about a hen’s life,” said Jeb Williams, North Dakota Game and Fish Department wildlife division chief.
Because pheasant chicks are unable to control their body temperature for many days after hatching, untimely cold, wet weather can kill the chicks despite the hen’s best efforts to keep them warm and dry. Since insects make up more than 90 percent of a pheasant chick’s diet; a lack of insects makes survival difficult.
But just like after winter 1996-97, down certainly doesn’t mean out.

While both winter and spring were wet, the winter was warm and the spring was cool, says Birkel.
The average statewide winter temperature was 20.1 F and the average statewide spring temperature was 38 F. The temperature in March, says Birkel, was the third coldest since 1984, behind 2015 and 2014.
Birkel says the climate in Maine and across the Northern Hemisphere is impacted by the declining extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice.
Birkel says one prominent view suggests a link between Arctic sea-ice loss and an increase in frequency of extreme climate events—heat and cold waves, record rain and snowfall—that have been observed across the Northern Hemisphere in the past decade.
Maine Climate News also contains information from the Maine Climate and Agriculture Network, which identifies data on climate change that could have the greatest impacts on agriculture.
Changes in average weather and extreme weather are affecting Maine agriculture, bringing both risks and potential opportunities, according to data compiled by the network.
The high temperatures can damage crops, including apples and peppers, as well as impact the health and productivity of dairy cows and other livestock.
The Maine Climate and Agriculture Network also reported the frequency of extreme storms in the state increased in 74 percent between 1948 and 2011.
Intense storms used to occur an average of once per year and they now occur an average of once per 7 months.
The frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events are expected to continue increasing in the coming decades.

Could Tompkins County have another drought this summer?.
And the summer after that.
And the summer after that.
According to early predictions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, Tompkins County – and the whole of the northeastern United States – is on course for another summer marked by above average temperatures.
Between 1895 and 2011, temperatures in the Northeastern United States have increased by almost 2˚F and, with it, high volume precipitation events have increased by more than 70 percent since 1958, according to figures from the 2014 National Climate Assessment while concurrently, droughtlike conditions related to bouts of extreme heat are predicted to intensify.
None of this definitively means there will be a drought this summer: as climatologists can only determine the outlook for precipitation about 14 days out (it looks like the next two weeks will be fairly wet, Spaccio said), it is almost impossible to predict whether or not all the pieces will fall into place leading to another drought, especially when the water table is at a healthy level.
“Right now, (a drought) is not expected,” Spaccio said.
“But conditions can change and, if we were to get a change in the weather conditions, we’d reexamine that.” But, she said, the conversation on summer droughts may soon become a regular occurrence at the start of every summer.
“We are expecting to see more of these long and short term droughts due to the effects of climate change,” she said.
Follow Nick Reynolds on Twitter @Nickthaca

A dry winter and growing season was challenging for vines in the Cape wine regions Old vines, likes these for Alheit winery, fared better in a dry year in the Cape wine regions.
South African vintners dealt with an extremely dry growing season in 2017, resulting in a small crop.
Both vintages made very concentrated wine, just different in nature."
"Nighttime temperatures were cooler and this resulted in higher acid retention," said Adam Mason, winemaker at Mulderbosch.
"We had to start irrigation in December before veraison.
The cooler days and nights resulted in slower sugar accumulation but the phenolics kept developing.
It was unique to see phenolic ripeness at lower sugar levels."
"The old vines were fabulous this year.
The crops were decent and the fruit very healthy and flavorful."
In the end, the producers say the wines are showing ripeness and concentration.

By Megan Nguyen As recently as this weekend, winter storms have brought much snow to the Sierra Nevada after five years of drought.
Warm temperatures have begun to melt the mountain snow that will flow down the valley through a network of rivers.
And with the large snowpack, these fast-flowing, cold conditions are likely to continue long into the summer season.
During the cooler winter, there is large variability in yearly precipitation – the most extreme in the nation – resulting in a wide potential for flood or drought in any year.
These frogs have adapted to California’s seasons and are genetically wired to lay eggs during the spring snowmelt when river flows recede and water temperatures increase.
On average, the snowpack provides about 30 percent of California’s water supply as it melts in the spring and early summer.
The average snow water equivalent (SWE) measures the amount of water contained within the snowpack.
As of June 1, 2017 the Central Sierra snowpack was 72% of the April 1 average, which is a dramatic increase from the last five years (Table 1.)
Also, earlier snowmelt may threaten California’s water supply and species dependent on snowmelt cues.
We are glad to see the mountains still capped with snow as they serve as an important water storage resource for California.