Relentless storms leave big dent in California's historic drought

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- A relentless series of storms has left a dent in California's historic drought.

This year could go down in the record books as the wettest ever for the golden state, but all this water could be a double-edged sword.

The latest storm to hit the state brought heavy rain and snowfall to communities across the Valley and foothills.

"Mountain, foothill areas, saw two inches of rain, and a lot of the Valley has seen roughly an inch of rain," explained Antoinette Serrato, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford.

At the start of this year, the drought monitor showed the majority of California in severe to extreme drought.

At the end of February, we saw significant improvement including areas of no drought.

Now, only 36% of California is in drought, compared to 43% last week.

As of this week, the only portion of Central California experiencing abnormally dry to severe drought is in the Sequoia National Park and Forest.

The latest drought report doesn't include any of the rainfall we saw in the last 48 hours.

"Unfortunately, the other side of that is that it is very possible for soils to get overly saturated, and that makes them primed for rockslides, landslides, and and flooding," said Serrato.

Soils in exceptional drought areas, can be hydrophobic, meaning they don't absorb water very well.

While drought maps show most of California in recovery, Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO Ryan Jacobsen says it will take years to fully recharge our water table.

"From a groundwater supply, we've had to over rely upon that during the extreme drought we went through and that doesn't recover overnight," Jacobsen said.

The Sierra Nevada is on the verge of surpassing the second-highest snow total for an entire winter season.

While that's mostly good news, with at least two months still to go, there are concerns for spring time flooding.

"We're hopeful we see dryer times ahead that will allow us to take advantage of the water that we've had so far and put it to great use here in the Valley," Jacobsen said.

When it comes to farming, water isn't the only worry.

We're still waiting to find out the impacts of our other weather extremes this winter, including hail and freezing temperatures.