You are now in California and the U.S. category.

Water infrastructure issues are much in the news in the U.S. — not only in the West, where drought continues to take a high toll, but also in other parts of the country, where the water needs for municipalities, energy production, commercial interests, and agriculture intersect and sometimes conflict. In this interview, one in a series of three exploring some of the nation’s water challenges, we talk with Bob Yamada, Director of Water Resources for the San Diego County Water Authority, about the mix of strategies adopted to meet the growing needs of the authority’s customers, and the new Carlsbad Desalination plant. This advanced technology reverse osmosis facility was built, financed, and will be operated through a public-private partnership under a water purchase agreement to serve the region for the next three decades.

Forecasters have a clearer picture than they did a couple days ago about just how clear the sky won’t be over Modesto this weekend.

Storm systems moving through Northern California from Thursday night through Sunday could drop as much as half an inch of rain in Modesto, 2 to 3 inches in Sonora.

Imagine you are sitting on the cusp of an historic event – one that is unfolding slowly but with mighty force, and one that will last well past your lifetime. Imagine you have people in your communities who are desperately trying to tell you about these changes, and what they have to say is numbing, impossible to embrace. This is the story of climate change in 2016 – and with it, California’s long-term drought.

The economics of the long-term drought have been substantiated: from a lack of ground water, the changes in farming, the jobs that are and will continue to disappear, to the cost of catastrophic floods and fires. The human effect — the “psychological responses” — is less understood.

Recent El Niño storms have increased the Sierra Nevada snowpack to 115 percent of normal, more than drought-stricken California has had in five years, officials said Tuesday. The electronic reading by the State Department of Water Resources was the highest since it reached 129 percent in 2011.

The Sierra snowpack contributes nearly one-third of California’s water when it melts in the spring. However, officials say the snowpack would have to be at 150 percent of normal by April 1 to ease the four-year drought. Key reservoirs are beginning to rise from the early winter storms but remain low. Lake Oroville in Butte County, the State Water Project’s largest reservoir, is at 60 percent of its historical average for this time of year.