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California water agencies that spent more than $350 million in the last two years of drought to pay property owners to rip out water-slurping lawns are now trying to answer whether the nation’s biggest lawn removal experiment was all worth the cost. Around the state, water experts and water-district employees are employing satellite images, infrared aerial photos, neighborhood drive-bys and complex algorithms to gauge just how much grassy turf was removed. They also want to know whether the fortune in rebates helped turn California tastes lastingly away from emerald-green turf.

One small change in the world has led to mind-blowing effects for Northern California, nature and the outdoor prospects for winter and the next year. That small change was a shift in mid-October in the location of the jet stream, the conveyor belt of storms. The deluges that have followed stopped a Tahoe fire, saturated soils, put many reservoirs at 100 percent of average for the date, fed wetlands in time for arriving waterfowl and shorebirds, and put ski parks in line for a chance at a big season. One of the best indicator sites is the weather station at the Blue Canyon airport, at 5,284 feet near Nyack along Interstate 80.

Wealthy farmer Dino Cortopassi has a lot in common with Gov. Jerry Brown. Both are in their late 70s. Both are opinionated. Both are Democrats. And both have a lot riding on Proposition 53, which would force state leaders to get voters’ approval before undertaking massive state building projects needing $2 billion or more in revenue bonds. Cortopassi, a 79-year-old Central Valley farmer and food processor, is pouring his money into passing the ballot measure, which could upend two legacy projects for Brown: $15.7 billion to build giant water tunnels to carry Northern California water southward, and $64 billion for a high-speed rail system.

There’s a lot of talk right now in California about water data. Do we have enough of it? Are we doing the right things with the information that we do have? And how are we sharing and using that data? Our first edition of “Water Talks,” a new, monthly conversation around hot topics in California water, centered on those crucial questions.

A surprisingly wet October continues to bring gentle rains to the Sacramento region, providing some relief to watersheds parched by five years of drought.

But as scattered showers hit the region Thursday, forecasters and hydrologists said the promising start to the rainy season, while helpful, doesn’t necessarily mean the drought will end this winter.

This October is the 12th wettest in Sacramento in the 139 years tracked by the National Weather Service. As much as 2 more inches of rain might fall before the month is over.