The April 1 federal allocation of irrigation water to California farmers is no joking matter for those south of the Delta who were slapped across the face with the announced 5 percent allotment.

How much better 5 percent is than zero is a matter of degree akin to choosing your death slowly and painfully, or quickly and efficiently.

The announcement illustrates gross negligence on the part of federal and state regulators who hide behind court edicts and biological opinions that are proving to have no positive effect on fish populations in the Delta region and the two main river systems in California that feed it.

Stanford researchers who studied trends in the atmospheric circulation patterns that affect California’s rainfall have found that conditions linked to the hot, dry weather during our latest drought have become more frequent in recent years, according to research published Friday.

That means that while this year’s El Niño-driven storms may have brought temporary relief to the Golden State’s parched soil and depleted reservoirs, Californians can expect more frequent droughts in the decades to come, said the study published by Science Advances.

Atmospheric patterns resembling those that appeared during the latter half of California’s ongoing multiyear drought are becoming much more common, a new study finds.

“The current record-breaking drought in California has arisen from both extremely low precipitation and extremely warm temperature,” says Noah Diffenbaugh, associate professor of earth system science at Stanford University.  “In this new study, we find clear evidence that atmospheric patterns that look like what we’ve seen during this extreme drought have in fact become more common in recent decades.”