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

Tuesday the state Water Resources Control Board reported the state had again failed to meet its water conservation goals in November. The same day, record rainfall was recorded at Los Angeles International Airport.

 

Missing the water saving goal is a bad thing, but the water board was conciliatory, as it has shown it is inclined to be. It emphasized that cumulatively from June to November, we were on track to hit the governor’s 25 percent water use reduction.

Now that 2016 has gotten off to a wet start, with a series of El Niño storms drenching California in recent days, the question is turning up with increasing frequency at dinner parties and coffee shops:

 

“How will we know when the drought is over?”

The answer, water experts say, is more complicated than you’d think.

A California lawmaker is dramatically raising the stakes when it comes to water, proposing fines that could reach thousands of dollars a day and public shaming of everyone who fails to conserve.

 

Legislation introduced this week would require the state’s 411 urban water districts to set a local limit on household water consumption for drought emergencies.

 

Violators would be fined at least $500 for every 748 gallons of excess use.

 

An Alamo house identified last month as using more than 11,200 gallons per day would be assessed $6,800 a day in fines, or more than $200,000 a month, under the penalties called for in the bill.

Folsom Lake, one of the water storage areas in northern California, rose almost 30 feet in just 30 days. The increase was thanks in big part to the recent series of storms, bringing multiple days of rain to the Central Valley.

 

According to the National Weather Service, Folsom Lake rose steadily at the end of December, then took a sharp increase starting December 22. Folsom Lake is now at 52 percent of average for this date.

Cold weather and heavy snowfall this winter may mean the end of drought in 2016 — maybe.

 

According to the first water supply outlook report for the year — released by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service — all basins in Oregon are experiencing above-normal snowpack levels, an estimated 125 percent of average.

 

That’s for the basins. The news gets even better. Snowfall levels already have surpassed the peak levels of last year’s snow season in all locations statewide. All locations.

 

Water managers are cautiously optimistic that the state will see drought recovery.