Northern California has received enough rain and snow in the past three years to escape an official classification as being in a drought. But NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center just released a three-month outlook showing drought is likely to return across large portions of Northern California by late June.
The Sacramento Valley and areas north of the Bay Area face the highest risk, with parts of Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties also expected to slip back into dry territory.
Right now, zero percent of California is officially in drought. But nearly 16% of the state is already classified as “abnormally dry,” the first step on the drought ladder, and conditions are shifting fast.
The problem is a winter that started wet but finished bone-dry, paired with temperatures that gutted the Sierra snowpack. Since Jan. 1, rainfall in San Francisco, Sacramento and Redding has run about 3.5 inches below normal. Northern Sierra snowpack sat at just 18% of normal as of last week.
That depleted snowpack means major reservoirs like Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville won’t get the slow, steady melt they depend on heading into summer. Several ski resorts have already shut down early due to rapid melt, including Mount Shasta Ski Park, Sierra-at-Tahoe and Homewood Mountain Resort.
An unusual late-March heat wave made things worse, with the National Weather Service describing it as a record-breaking high-pressure ridge bringing near-summer conditions to the region.
No significant rain is in the forecast through April, and historically, the Bay Area averages just two inches of combined rainfall across April and May. For a region that’s watched drought spread southward before, the pattern is familiar and concerning.
Active NorCal contributed to this report.