California has been experiencing one of the most severe droughts on record. Vast reservoirs and rivers once plentiful now lie near empty. With the onset of the rain season, drought severity decreased from 58% of California in exceptional drought to 32% (via drought.gov). Unfortunately, now that the first half of the rain season has ended, the percentage of exceptional drought creeps upwards again, hitting about 39% from mid-January dryness. As this rate increases from the onset of the dry season, California can expect much higher percentages of drought everywhere and a much harder year than the last.
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/products/rescond.pdf
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2901
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/12/15/its-raining-so-how-do-those-reservoirs-look
-Robert Romero