Drought in California

California’s land is parched. Since 2000, it has cycled through four periods of drought, which occurs when unusually dry weather and lack of rain persist for two or more years.

Crops can withstand short-term dry spells because they are irrigated. But forests and other natural ecosystems are more vulnerable because they don’t have extra water reserves — and this heightens the risks and severity of wildfires.

Devastating fires swept through the state in 2003 during the 2001–2004 drought.

In the Cleveland National Forest, a hunter became lost and lit a small fire to signal for help. It spread out of control and became, at that point, the largest wildland fire in California’s history. The loss from the Cedar Fire was estimated to be $204 million.

California tends to cycle through periods of wet and dry weather. After the 2001–2004 drought, the state got a reprieve with a few years of higher-than-average rainfall:

After about two years of wet weather, California entered another drought. During the 2007 water year — which starts in October 2006 and ends in September 2007 — total precipitation in Southern California was less than one-third the average. In Central California, it was less than half.

External factors exacerbated the impacts of the 2007–2009 drought: intrastate water projects were restricted to protect endangered fish species, which reduced water supplies. Because of the water shortages, workers and people in rural communities dependent on agriculture lost jobs.

In 2009, the governor declared California’s first statewide emergency for drought.

The 2007–2009 drought ended as California entered another period of wet years:

In 2012, one of the longest droughts in recent history hit the state. It lasted for five years.

Drought-related losses totaled an estimated $10 billion. When groundwater wells dried up, communities with smaller water systems that lacked emergency supply suffered. In 2015, almost 2,000 domestic wells — privately-owned sources that many people in rural areas rely on for everyday needs — failed in Tulare county alone. People there had to haul in water for everything, from drinking to bathing.

Years of relentless drought took a toll on trees, too. Weakened by drought, high temperatures and bark beetle infestation, 26 million trees died across 6 counties in just 8 months.

During the 2016 water year, precipitation returned to near normal in Northern California, which alleviated the impacts of drought for many counties. But Southern California remained dry.

Heavy rainfall — which made 2017 the state’s second wettest year on record — finally ended the five-year drought.

Less than four years later, California entered yet another drought in 2020. By the end of 2022, the state had weathered its driest three-year period on record.

Interspersed were record-breaking storms that dumped massive amounts of rain and snow on the state — a whiplash from dry to wet. And the two climate extremes are becoming even more drastic: as droughts and heat waves intensify, massive storms are expected to deluge the state during its occasional wet years.

The two extremes can torment California at the same time. During the barrage of winter storms in late 2022 and early 2023, the state declared a state of emergency for the flooding and water destruction.

At the same time, it remains in a drought emergency issued by governor Gavin Newsom in 2021.

Climate change and warmer temperatures will only make drought more severe. The year 2014 was the hottest on record for California, making the 2012–2016 drought one of the warmest in history.