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Consistent storms across California this year have helped improve drought conditions and bring above-average downpours to cities throughout the state. According to the Western Regional Climate Center, rainfall since Oct. 1, 2016—the beginning of the water year—is 120 percent to 200 percent of normal in regions across California. The heavy rainfall is a sign of relief for drought conditions throughout the state, which have continued to improve in 2017, according to weekly reports from the U.S. Drought Monitor.

A statewide downpour brought chaos to Californians this week, but it also provided some welcome relief to the state’s 20 million residents who have suffered from drought conditions for more than four years. The record precipitation now has some experts declaring the drought over. The drought began in 2012, but California Gov. Jerry Brown did not declare a drought state of emergency until January 2014. A response team was later established, and state lawmakers have allocated over $3 billion for drought relief and water management improvements.

Water managers in a California community say they’re taking advantage of a break in storms to draw down water from behind a dam that is full, causing a creek to overflow and flood parts of San Jose. Jim Fiedler of the Santa Clara Valley Water District said Wednesday that Anderson Dam is full. Releases over its spillway have flooded neighborhoods in San Jose. The district is required to keep the dam 68 percent of capacity after inspections found that it could fail in a major earthquake.

As a kid growing up in the Southland, I got my weather tips on the television from a mustached meteorologist named Dr. George. He would get quite excited when a big rainstorm was heading our way, breathlessly drawing pressure gradients and furiously waving a wand as if commanding a symphony. It felt like something epic and rare was about to happen. I still find myself mesmerized by meteorologists and wonder if new insights into atmospheric rivers will move the needle with key California water decisions.

After six years of drought and a few months of flooding, California’s decades-long political commitment to ideology of being either for the environment or against progress has endangered the state’s water supply system and is threatening public safety, environmental health and economic stability. Rather than upgrade California’s water collection and delivery systems, for 50 years state bureaucrats, political appointees and many elected officials focused their priorities on an onslaught of environmental standards, regulations, projects and programs committed to their rose-colored-glasses vision of California.