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For the first time in four years, more than half of California’s land area is no longer classified as being in drought conditions by the federal government — the latest milestone signaling the end of the state’s historic drought. Altogether, 53 percent of California has seen enough precipitation, and its reservoirs and groundwater levels filled so much that it is not in drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Nebraska. A year ago, just 5 percent of the state was out of drought.

With a break in the weather and increased outflow from Oroville Dam’s heavily damaged spillway, state officials said Friday morning they no longer believe the swollen reservoir will breach the dam’s emergency spillway. After a grim assessment late Thursday, officials announced Friday morning they think they can avoid using the dam’s emergency spillway, which they’ve been working feverishly to avoid. The emergency structure feeds into an unlined ravine, and the water would propel soil, trees and other debris into the Feather River.

The strongest of this week’s drenching storms moved ashore Thursday in Northern California, raising the risk of flooding and mudslides in the region of already soggy hillsides and swollen rivers. Flood and wind warnings were in place again north of San Francisco, where residents along the Russian River stacked sandbags to protect their properties. The river overtopped its banks in some areas and flooded streets Wednesday, but began to drop later in the day. The wine region community never dried out after damaging flooding during storms last month.

 

Gov. Jerry Brown devoted most of last month’s State of the State address to excoriating Donald Trump, who had been president for just four days. “We have seen the bald assertion of alternative facts,” Brown complained. “We have heard the blatant attacks on science. Familiar signposts of our democracy – truth, civility, working together – have been obscured or swept aside.” However, buried in Brown’s anti-Trump screed were two paragraphs of semi-cordiality:

 

Until Donald Trump won the presidency, prospects looked bleak for Cadiz, a California company that has struggled for years to secure federal permits to transform Mojave Desert groundwater into liquid gold. With the change of administration, a new day is dawning. In December, the National Governors Association circulated a preliminary list of infrastructure projects provided by the Trump transition team, and Cadiz’s was on the list. The company’s stock price rose on that news, part of a trend that has seen Cadiz’s valuation more than double – to roughly $14 a share – since the election.