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Earlier this summer, researchers at UC-Davis confirmed what a lot of us already know—that saving water saves energy. The analysis from the UC-Davis Center for Water-Energy Efficiency found that California’s mandatory 25 percent reduction in urban water use, which was adopted in May 2015 due to the ongoing severe drought, resulted in significant energy and greenhouse gas savings. From June 2015 to February 2016, the electricity saved by reducing urban water use is estimated to have been nearly 922 gigawatt-hours.

This time of year many Californians start to wonder if we’ll have a wet or dry winter. The next rainy season is still over two months away, typically starting just after Halloween. Last year, we had a strong El Niño bringing hopes of a wet winter. Up next, a weak La Niña which typically brings drier weather to the Golden State. Rain and snow fell short this past winter and spring of what many Californians were hoping for given a record strong El Niño in the tropical Pacific.

I know you’re tired of the drought. Tired of hearing about it; tired of trying to squeeze a little more savings out of your garden and indoor water use; tired of processing bad news about dying fisheries, drying wells, suffering farmers and dead trees. I’m tired, too: tired of studying and analyzing the impacts of this drought on California, after having done so for droughts between 1987 and 1992 and again between 2007–2009.

Critics of the Governor Jerry Brown’s California Water Fix scored a victory on Wednesday.  By a 9-2 vote, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee approved a financial audit of the controversial Twin Tunnels project. The two tunnels would divert water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and deliver it to southern parts of the state.The bi-partisan vote was requested by legislators representing the San Joaquin Delta. The effort was led by Stockton Democratic Assemblymember Susan Talamantes Eggman and State Senator Lois Wolk, of Davis.

There is little good news for drought-parched California in the latest forecast for the winter. There is about a 55 percent to 60 percent chance that California will come under the influence of La Niña during the fall and winter 2016-17, it says. La Nina is the name given to a general cooling of Pacific Ocean waters near the equator, the opposite of “El Nino.” What is means for California is general dry weather during the winter with less rain and snow than average. La Nina does pump more rain into the Pacific Northwest.