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California’s Drought-Relief Dreams Are Quickly Drying Up

A wetter-than-usual December offered early hope for 2022. But skies have been clear ever since, raising risks of another parched year.

Lake Oroville in Oroville, Calif., in October 2021. 

Lake Oroville in Oroville, Calif., in October 2021. 

Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

As recently as Christmas, it looked like California’s devastating drought could—if not fully disappear—at least be on track for serious improvement by spring. That’s no longer the case.

California’s snowpack was promisingly high at the start of the year after Pacific storms in October and December delivered a round of heavy rains and deep snows. But it has since dropped below where officials hoped it would be for this time of year after those early-season cloudbursts turned out to be isolated events.