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An already dry winter for the Colorado River has gotten worse in recent weeks, but it won’t be enough to send Lake Mead to a record low — at least not right away. Despite worsening conditions in the mountains that feed the Colorado, forecasters still expect the reservoir east of Las Vegas to contain just enough water by the end of the year to avoid a first-ever federal shortage declaration. A month ago, the Colorado River Basin was on track for its seventh-driest winter in more than half a century.

An atmospheric river is predicted to dump more rain on Southern California and the Central Coast than any other storm this year, and is expected to drop up to 4 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada and 2 inches of rain in Sacramento before dissipating over the weekend. The National Weather Service expects a weak preliminary storm to hit Tuesday afternoon. Light rain and snow above 5,000-6,000 feet elevation is expected before a short break Wednesday morning, followed by a second system’s arrival that afternoon.

Nature bats last and the weather in March is hitting a grand slam for the outdoors. The latest storms to sweep across the Bay Area, Sierra Nevada and Northern California are a game changer for the snowpack, reservoir levels — and the imminent blossoming of spring across the parklands and greenbelt in the Bay Area. In a two-week span, the bottom of the ninth for winter, the storms arrived in time to transform the prospects for camping, hiking, boating, fishing and wilderness for the spring and summer recreation season.

Less than a year after Gov. Jerry Brown declared the end of a statewide drought in April 2017, people are conserving less water and California’s water systems are once again vulnerable to drought. Following an unusually dry winter, water conservation this year has fallen far below the mandated levels during the state’s recent multiyear drought, resulting in a combination of factors that may potentially lead to another drought.