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

A storm will deliver several days of much-needed rain to the drought-stricken western United States late this week. However, rain could be heavy enough to cause flash flooding and travel delays.

Rain is desperately needed across most of the Southwest and parts of the Northwest. According to an April 26 report by the U.S. Drought Monitor, an estimated 45 million people are being affected by drought in the West. Over 50 percent of California is in extreme or exceptional drought.

If you haven’t heard about Sudden Oak Death, it’s a fungal disease that can wipe out a variety of California’s tree species, it’s spread by wind and rain, and after first becoming an epidemic here in 2002, it’s now gotten to the point where any efforts to stop it will likely not help. SFist first wrote about the problem in 2004 (in the first year this site existed) when the disease, with the Latin pathogenic name of Phytophthora ramorum, was first recorded in Golden Gate Park, killing trees in the AIDS Memorial Grove.

Nestle extracted 36 million gallons of water from a national forest in California last year to sell as bottled water, even as Californians were ordered to cut their water use because of a historic drought in the state.

And the permit that Nestle uses to operate its water pipeline in the San Bernardino national forest costs just $524 (£357) a year. That rankles with some residents and environmental groups, who want the US government to cut off Nestle’s access to the water until an environmental study can be conducted.

Trees in California are dying at the highest rate in at least 15 years, raising the risk of faster-moving and more-intense forest fires, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

Aerial surveys conducted by the service last year estimated a tenfold jump in tree mortality since 2014. According to results released last month, an estimated 27.6 million dead trees were found in the forest landscape last year. In 2014, an estimated 3.3 million dead trees were identified. The statewide aerial surveys date back to 2001.

Residents of drought-stricken California doubled their water conservation efforts in March compared with the month before by turning off their sprinklers when the rain fell and changing habits, officials said Tuesday.

Cities and businesses used 24.3 percent less water compared with the same time in 2013. That’s twice the saving from the dry month of February, when the savings hit an all-time low of 12 percent, water regulators announced at a meeting in Sacramento.