Drought in California is not over

Although the state is once more allowing local communities to set their own water limits, things are still bad, especially in Southern California. There are still two or three entire years of rain missing since this drought began five years ago. The snowpack from this winter is already melting, by late May it was down to just 35 percent of normal.

And,of course, one additional problem re the drought is forest fires. The U.S. Forest Service estimates that 40 million trees statewide have died during the five-year drought, 29 million in just 2015. Dead trees are like matchsticks for forest fires.