Half of California freed from drought thanks to heavy rain and snowfall

Same storm system now moving eastward, threatening the Southern Plains region and cancelling flights out of Texas

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Heavy rain and snowfall have relieved half of California from drought, though low groundwater levels remain a persistent problem, US Drought Monitor data showed on Thursday.

The latest analysis shows that moderate or severe drought is still affecting about 49 per cent of California, while nearly 17 per cent of the state is free of drought or “abnormally dry” conditions.

“Clearly the amount of water that's fallen this year has greatly alleviated the drought,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“It has not ended the drought completely but we're in a very different place than we were a year ago.”

Three months ago, almost all of California was in drought, including at extreme and exceptional levels.

Water agencies serving millions of people, agriculture and industry were told to expect only a fraction of requested allocations.

The turnabout began with a series of atmospheric rivers that pounded the state from late December through mid-January, building a huge Sierra Nevada snowpack.

After a few largely dry weeks, powerful storms returned in February. Water authorities began boosting allocations.

As of Thursday, the water content of the Sierra snowpack, which provides about a third of California's water, was 170 per cent of the historical average on April 1, when it is normally at its peak, according to the state's Department of Water Resources.

The snowpack could become the largest ever observed in parts of California. The outlook calls for a continuing wet pattern, particularly for northern parts of the state, and possibly more metres of snow, Mr Swain said.

Meanwhile, this same system moved eastward on Thursday, threatening the Southern Plains region with severe weather and prompting the cancellation of hundreds of flights into and out of Dallas, Texas.

FlightAware reports Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field have tallied more than 400 cancellations, either to or from the airports, as the storm approaches the region.

“This is the same system that struck California and it's now in New Mexico and will be crossing Texas and then Arkansas,” said Rich Thompson, lead forecaster for the Storm Prediction Centre in Norman, Oklahoma.

He said high winds and hail pose the greatest threats.

“The really intense tornadoes don't seem likely,” Mr Thompson said. “We think the biggest threat will be very large hail, baseball-sized hail.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Updated: March 02, 2023, 9:04 PM