Even though the winter of 2016 brought a strong El Nino, it wasn’t enough to recover from the previous years’ dismal snowpacks.
In a report released by a team of researchers led by UCLA, the snow water equivalent (SWE) seen in 2015, when added to the previous three years of drought, was the worst seen in 1,200 years.
Since the SWE in the Sierra snowpack directly affects the state, the scientists also said that, even if the Sierra has average snowpacks, it will take
California until at least 2019 to recover.
In their study, which was published in the journal, Geophyiscal Research Letters, researchers said that all drought periods in the previous 65 years recovered after just one year, which wasn’t the case in 2012-16.
They said in a future climate with more frequent droughts with concurrently higher temperatures, there is potential for increased likelihood of large drought deficits that will lead to multiyear recoveries.
Read complete report: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL068520/full