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A series of December storms delivered a welcome boost to California’s snowpack, scientists said on Tuesday in a closely watched assessment of the state’s water resources for the year ahead.

The snowpack survey recorded a snow depth of 24in (61cm), said Angelique Fabbiani-Leon, state hydrometeorologist at the California department of water resources’ snow surveys and water supply forecasting unit. The survey was conducted at the Phillips station in the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range that covers the eastern part of the state.

The Newsom administration and local agencies are working to capture stormwater for future use as California faces a series of major storms during the holiday period.

According to officials, the efforts are intended to strengthen water supplies statewide while reducing flood risks as heavy rain moves across the region. The development comes California braces for winter storms expected to impact the state throughout the holiday season. Governor Gavin Newsom said California has taken early, coordinated steps to protect residents from the storms’ impacts.

Lush green fields of alfalfa spread across thousands of acres in a desert valley in western Arizona, where a dairy company from Saudi Arabia grows the thirsty crop by pulling up groundwater from dozens of wells.

The company, Fondomonte, is the largest water user in the Ranegras Plain groundwater basin, shipping hay overseas to feed its cows in the Middle East. Like other landowners in the area, it has been allowed to pump unlimited amounts from the aquifer, even as water levels have declined.

The president of the Utah State Senate has an idea he thinks could help states along the Colorado River. “What we do in Utah is we solve problems and that’s what we’re in the middle of,” Senate President J. Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said in a recent interview with FOX 13 News.

His idea is to pay California to build more desalination plants along the Pacific Ocean for their water needs. In exchange, they’d give up some shares of water along the Colorado River for Utah and other upstream states to use.

The sign outside Tom Hermes’s farmyard in Perkins Township in Ohio, a short drive south of the shores of Lake Erie, proudly claims that his family have farmed the land here since 1900. Today, he raises 130 head of cattle and grows corn, wheat, grass and soybeans on 1,200 acres of land.

For his family, his animals and wider business, water is life.