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The pear trees are already blooming in Celeste Cantú’s garden. She usually sees the blossoms appear in late February, but this winter’s extreme warmth triggered the bloom a full month early. As the thermometer hit 80 degrees in her garden, she snapped a photo of the blossoms and posted it on Facebook with the question: “Do you think the three weeks of winter are over in So Ca?” A winter heat wave has settled over the Southwest and is bringing record-high temperatures to parts of Southern California, along with dry, gusty winds that have prompted warnings of fire danger.

Yosemite’s Half Dome saw a picturesque dusting of snow this past week while skiers in Tahoe welcomed a shot of fresh powder. Yet California’s Sierra Nevada is plunging deeper into a warm, dry winter that shows little sign of a turnaround. Mile-high mountainsides were low on snow Monday and alpine skies remained a stubborn summer blue. The forecast called for above-average temperatures and virtually no precipitation through at least the first 10 days of February — the third and final month of the state’s peak wet season.

State Water Project contractors got a slight uptick Monday in the amount of water they will be getting this year. The Department of Water Resources increased the allocation from the 15 percent announced in December to 20 percent of the amount of water requested. The allocations always start low, and usually rise as the rainy season continues and calculations of the water supply firm up.

Last week, state regulators released their initial findings for potential dam and reservoir projects that could receive funds from Proposition 1, the $7.5 billion water bond passed by voters in 2014 in response to California’s record drought. The bond was approved with the promise of at least $2.7 billion for increased water storage but based on what was released last week, none of the projects that applied met the criteria for this money. Water agencies were alarmed when the results were released and many were caught off guard.

California water officials have approved $34.4 million in grants to eight desalination projects across the state, including one in the East Bay city of Antioch, as part of an effort to boost the water supply in the wake of the state’s historic, five-year drought. The money comes from Proposition 1, a water bond passed by state voters in November 2014 during the depths of the drought, and it highlights a new trend in purifying salty water for human consumption: only one of the projects is dependent on the ocean.