Many Californians did well last year to save water by taking shorter showers, fixing water leaks, and reducing irrigation. But not all cities were able to meet Mr. Brown’s conservation goalsso we have California Drought. Greater efforts are needed this year as California heads into its fifth year of drought.

There is some good news too–particularly for Northern California. This past winter gave relief to the mandatory water cuts due to the abundant snow and rainfall from the El Niño weather conditions. Though it wasn’t enough to offset the drought completely, the wet winter refilled many of the California’s largest reservoirs such as Lake Shasta, which stood at 89% compared to 59% last year.

“Officials said they would consider relaxing the mandates—particularly for cities in Northern California, which received the most precipitation,” says The Wall Street Journal. The state Department of Water Resources showed that the northern Sierra Nevada mountains had 97% of average snow pack compared with 72% in the southern Sierra. Snow levels are at their highest in five years, but experts say that twice as much precipitation is needed to get out of this drought. Therefore water restrictions have been extended through October 2016.

See the original article here.