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

If we had known a year ago that this winter would be so dry, would we have conserved water more aggressively last summer? Would ski resorts have installed more snowmaking equipment? Would farmers buy different seeds to plant this spring? These are among the tantalizing questions raised by a team of government and university scientists, who believe they have developed a tool to predict mountain snowpack in the West up to eight months in advance – long before the first winter snowflake has fallen.

After months of relatively dry weather in California, this winter’s biggest storm to date is set to deliver rain at lower elevations and feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains. That’s good news for the precipitation-starved state, but will this storm be enough to mitigate the growing number of areas facing severe drought? The National Weather Service reports that the storm will begin late tonight and impact the state through Saturday.

California currently provides two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts, but according to a new study published Tuesday, by the end of the century California’s climate will no longer be able to support the state’s major crops, including orchards. The report, published in “Agronomy,” warns that the increased rate and scale of climate change is “beyond the realm of experience” for the agricultural community, and unless farmers take urgent measures, the consequences could threaten national food security.

California has been blessed with the distinction of being home to some of the richest and the poorest income-earning Americans, according to a 2015 report by the Social Science Research Council. This stark division of wealth between the extravagantly rich and the destitute is displayed vividly in how the state’s residents consume water. On the one hand, some estate owners have been publicly shamed for watering their lawns during extreme drought with thousands of gallons per day – sometimes five or 10 times the average household rate.

Facing pressure from Gov. Jerry Brown, Southern California’s largest water agency could vote as soon as April on whether to take a majority stake in the twin-tunnels project Brown plans for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The fast-track timeline was disclosed Tuesday at a committee of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which heard a report from staff members about the benefits, risks and financing possibilities of the agency agreeing to pay the majority of the costs in a twin tunnels system.