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

Despite a wet winter that has much of California emerging from drought, state officials are showing no sign that they’ll ease up on water regulations imposed on cities and towns over the past three years. Staffers at the State Water Resources Control Board sent a proposal Tuesday to the agency’s governing board recommending renewal of emergency drought mandates that have required urban suppliers to put specific quantities of water in reserve, or cut consumption, under the threat of fines.

The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors proclaimed a local state of emergency effective for 30 days on Tuesday in response to a spate of winter storms this month. Approving a state of emergency allows the county to seek reimbursement from state and federal governments for damage caused by the storms. With more storms expected to move into the area this week, staff said the county’s Emergency Operations Center remains activated.

After a half-decade of drought, California has been buffeted this winter by a series of powerful rain and snowstorms that dumped countless gallons of water on the state’s watersheds. Some of the deluge was captured in the form of mountain snows that will feed rivers and streams during the annual spring melt. But at lower elevations, it was rain, some retained in man-made reservoirs that had been seriously depleted, but most flowing swiftly to the Pacific Ocean.

After a week of being walloped by major storms that have dumped copious rain and snow on the state, California is finally emerging from a deep, years-long drought. Ski resorts in the Sierra Nevada mountains are flush with snow, while key reservoirs have filled back up. On Jan. 12, the U.S. Drought Monitor erased all drought in Northern California from the map and dialed back the severity over the southern half of the state.

Droughts are common in California, a large, generally dry, and hydrologically complex place.  So it is hard to rely on a single index of the end or beginning of a drought.  A single storm is rarely enough to end a drought in California, especially a long drought like the one that seems to be mostly ending now.  Regular hydrologic statistics can be used as indicators of drought, but these do not do justice to how droughts actually end (or begin).