California’s congressional delegation continued to wrangle over how to respond to the Golden State’s water crisis Thursday when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) released what she called a “discussion draft” of proposed legislation.

 

Feinstein said in a statement that the bill addresses long-term and short-term water concerns.

“In my 23 years in the Senate, this has been the most difficult bill to put together. The maxim that whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting is alive and well in California,” she said.

With a couple of weeks of rain and snow behind them and more on the horizon for the Sierra Nevada in Northern California, state water officials expressed cautious hope that this El Niño season could lift California out of its historic drought.

 

“The recent rains have put us on a good trajectory to perhaps have a shot out of the drought if it were to continue at the current rate,” said Doug Carlson, a spokesman with the California Department of Water Resources.

Wonder when El Niño is really coming to SoCal? NBC4 Meteorologist Anthony Yanez has some answers:

 

It’s the number one question I get about our weather: “Where is the rain from El Niño?”

 

If you’ve been paying close attention, you know the NBCLA weather team has been saying for months that we should be prepared for February and March. Everything is still on track for that time frame. But we have to be careful for what we wish for.

California water regulators on Tuesday approved new rules aimed at improving how the state tracks diversions of surface water.

 

The regulations adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board require all those who divert water from rivers and streams to measure and report how much they use annually. The regulations apply to thousands of holders of water rights across the state, from farmers to water agencies.

 

Water board officials said previously some holders of water rights were required to report on diversions every three years instead of annually, and a number of them had been able to claim an exemption to avoid the measurement requirements.

It’s a little too soon to write of this season’s El Niño as a no-show, just because a punishing succession of drenching storms has yet to materialize. The weather phenomenon is still on, even if the drizzles in Southern California and the harder rain up north that are happening now aren’t really El Niño-driven, according to experts. (With the exception of the intense rain in the first week of this month.) The LA Times reports that the relatively mild weather we’re seeing now here in the Southland is actually just part of normal weather for this time of year, but they insist that there are still serious storms .