Most of northern California received between five-and-twenty inches of rain in the last two weeks.
But, while streams and rivers swelled, reservoirs only rose by five-to-seven percent.
Michelle Mead with the National Weather Service says the storms dumped too much water on much of the state in too short a time.
"It did overwhelm a lot of the smaller creeks and streams and we ended up having flooding impacts as a result," says Mead. "The reservoirs actually only saw small gains from these rains and that's actually where we were really hoping to see a little more improvement."
The reservoirs average about a third of capacity and about 50 percent of normal for this time of year.
Mead says the water content in the Sierra snow pack is a little less than half of normal.
"We have it at the highest elevations, but locations around 5500 feet -where we really like to see the thicker snow pack- is not as much as we were hoping."
The rain we received has helped downgrade the drought status from the worst to second-worst for the northern third of the state.
The National Weather Service forecast for the first three months of next year is for warmer-than-normal temperatures.
The forecast also calls for a 33 to 39 percent probability that extreme northern California and a 40 to 49 percent likelihood that the rest of California could receive above-average rain and snowfall.
Follow us for more stories like this
CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.
Donate Today