Over five trillion gallons of water — much of it still locked up as snow in the mountains — fell across California in January, ending the prolonged drought in the northern part of the state. The parade of snowstorms that blasted the state in January dumped the equivalent of about 5.7 trillion gallons of water, according to researchers at Colorado University’s Center for Water Earth Science and Technology. (That’s how much water was in the snow that fell). Many ski areas in the Sierra were pasted with 20 to 30 feet of snow. Mammoth Mountain had its snowiest month ever recorded, with over 20 feet.