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Downtown L.A. Sees No Rain in November for 1st time in Nearly 30 Years

With just hours left to go in this month — and no precipitation in the forecast for Tuesday — downtown Los Angeles is set to experience its first rainless November in almost 30 years, according to the National Weather Service.

The 11th month of the year is typically not a wet one for the area, with downtown’s average just a hair above three-quarters of an inch on average, NWS said.

However, it’s still unusual for there to be no precipitation at all. In fact, that hasn’t happened since 1992, weather service data showed.

December Has Been Wet in California, But a Predicted Dry Winter Means Wildfire Danger Could Return Early

Southern California’s wettest December in nearly a decade quashed any danger lingering from destructive wildfires in fall, but experts warn that red flag conditions could return as early as April.

Lake Tahoe Is At Its Fullest In Nearly 20 Years As Snowmelt Pushes Water Level Close To Limit

Lake Tahoe is the fullest it’s been in nearly two decades. Officials say the alpine lake on the California-Nevada line is approaching the legal limit after snowmelt from a stormy winter left enough water to potentially last through three summers of drought. For three weeks, Tahoe has been within an inch (25 millimeters) of its maximum allowed surface elevation of 6,229.1 feet (1,898 meters) above sea level. It crept to within a half-inch (13 millimeters) earlier this week. Chad Blanchard, a federal water master in Reno responsible for managing the water, told the Reno Gazette Journal it’s the longest he’s seen the lake stay that high for so long.

California’s Unusually Wet Spring Is Delaying, Damaging Crops

California growers are frustrated by an unusually wet spring that has delayed the planting of some crops like rice and damaged others including strawberries and wine grapes. The state’s wet conditions come as much of the West is experiencing weird weather. Colorado and Wyoming got an unusually late dump of snow this week. Meanwhile temperatures in Phoenix have dropped 15 degrees below normal. Large swaths of California have seen two to five times more precipitation than is normal for this point in May, the National Weather Service said. A series of storms soaked much of Colusa County where rice grower Kurt Richter was forced to wait weeks to seed his land.

Possible Showers And Scattered Thunderstorms Forecast For SoCal

Authorities reminded residents Sunday shelter from lightning as showers and scattered thunderstorms were forecast for Southern California. The storm was expected to move through the region Sunday night and all Monday, and bring dry and wet thunderstorms, according to the National Weather Service. Weather officials warned of dangerous lightning over land and water and reminded residents that conditions can change quickly, especially in the mountains.

Sierra Snowpack At 156% As Some CA Ski Resorts Get Over 550 Inches Of Snow This Season

A very wet winter across California recently pulled the state out of drought for the first time in years, and it’s also been a boon for the Sierra snowpack, now at a staggering 156 percent above normal as of Wednesday. The latest figures show a marked improvement over this time last year, when the statewide average for the snowpack was about 40 percent of normal, according to the National Weather Service’s Hanford office. In fact, as the weather service noted in a tweet, the snowpack has reached 150 percent just eleven times in March since measurements began in 1950 — and only twice this century. The last time was in 2017.

7 Southwestern States, Including California, Expected to Miss Deadline on Colorado River Drought Plan

With drought entering a second decade and reservoirs continuing to shrink, seven Southwestern U.S. states that depend on the overtaxed Colorado River for crop irrigation and drinking water had been expected to ink a crucial share-the-pain contingency plan by the end of 2018. They’re not going to make it — at least not in time for upcoming meetings in Las Vegas involving representatives from Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and the U.S. government, officials say.

KTLA 360 Video: Seven Oaks Dam

At 550 feet, Seven Oaks Dam is the tallest in Southern California. Completed 19 years ago in the San Bernardino Mountains, the dam prevents severe storms from flooding communities along the Santa Ana River, protecting millions of residents in San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties.