As the Golden State moves into 2019, it will close the book on an abnormally dry year with hopes that a few rain storms can stave off the prospect of another drought. Two consecutive years of devastating wildfires killing dozens of residents, causing billions in property damage and reducing millions of acres to ash has demonstrated the effects of the prolonged drought stretching from 2012 until 2017. Storms finally brought much-needed precipitation in 2017, replenishing reservoirs and aquifers, but the moisture content in the forest vegetation and the swathes of dead trees in the Sierra Nevada attest to the consequences of the sustained dry weather.