Poseidon answered California’s prolonged drought crisis with a “bomb cyclone” pouring enough water over the state to temporarily replenish residents’ parched reservoirs.
The single cyclone on its own still doesn’t come close to accomplishing long-term alleviation of California’s seemingly chronic water shortage. An end to the drought would require years of above-average precipitation, even after snowstorms have padded the Sierra Nevada snowpack. But the record rainfall does offer short-term relief.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, California’s surface area that’s under drought conditions has dropped to just more than 71 percent since the storm hit, down from 85 percent
