Water surface levels at Folsom Lake in Granite Bay, California dropped to 68 feet below what they were at this time last year.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Climate Adaptation
California’s Epic Drought Is Parching Reservoirs and Worrying Farmers
The state is facing one of its driest summers ever, portending another catastrophic fire season.
There is dry, and then there is desiccated.
As any movie fan knows from the classic film Chinatown, California is an infamously thirsty place. But this year, even by its own standards, the state is shockingly, scarily parched. So far in 2021, the state has received half of its expected precipitation; that makes it the third driest year on record according to California’s Department of Water Resources.