California– Drought and Flooding

Recently, California has been faced with a series of atmospheric river storms, which can be compared to rivers in the sky that dump rain. These storms have been bringing California plenty of rain– which is beneficial for the extreme drought conditions it has been facing, but also causing destruction and havoc in general.

Just in December, California was in its third year of drought and 36% of the large state was in extreme drought. Now, only a small part of Northern California (0.32% of the state) was facing extreme drought conditions. These powerful storms have helped California’s reservoirs recover from the drought spell and officials are expecting to see another river storm near the end of January, boosting California’s water levels more before the dry season.

Now, are these storms making a LARGE impact on the dangerously low levels of Lake Mead and the Colorado River? No.

But California’s reservoirs will take all the water it can get in the light of the recent ongoing drought, even if it is considered a drop in a bucket for huge water sources, including the Colorado River and Lake Mead.

However, what are the other impacts California has faced from the storms? Bad flooding, mixed with infrastructure destruction and death, is the answer.

California’s homes and roads have been flooded, people have been killed from rockslides, harsh winds have knocked over trees and other structures, and sinkholes have even been created in California’s highways and roads. Hopefully California will be facing the last of these intense storms soon in order to start recovering from severe flood damage affecting the majority of the state.

All in all, these storms have had positive impacts on California’s devastating drought, but is that worth it for the amount of flood damage to this large state’s infrastructure?