California is drought-free for the first time since 2000, U.S. Drought Monitor shows

By Kayla Moeller

Current drought maps are showing California is drought-free for the first time in 25 years.

The U.S. Drought Monitor climatologists put out a weekly map assessing drought conditions across the country. This week’s map continues to show zero drought conditions across the whole state of California. 

“This is the first time we have seen that since December of 2000. It’s been quite a while since there’s been no abnormally dry conditions or worse being depicted in the state,” said Brian Fuchs, climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The map shows that much of the rest of the country is experiencing abnormally dry or drought conditions.

“When we start looking at California, the first map that actually had no drought depicted in the state on the U.S. Monitor was the map on the week of Dec. 9. That was where we had zero drought, but we did have a little under 9% of the state that is abnormally dry. Since that time, we’ve knocked down that abnormally dry with the continued wet pattern, so now we have no abnormally dry, no drought being depicted on the U.S. Drought Monitor map,” Fuchs said.

“This water year that started Oct. 1, we got off to a great start. We’ve seen regular storms work their way through over the months and in the first quarter of the water year, as we rounded into the new calendar year, we’re at about 150% of average for precipitation,” said Michael Anderson, a state climatologist with the California Department of Water Resources.

Our first alert weather team says this 2025-2026 season is considered to be a La Niña year, and for California, that usually means drier conditions.

“But this year is an anomaly. We’re seeing the storms form right off the coast of California, so they’re coming right in and inundating the state from north to south, so we’ve had this heavy, steady rain that has continued,” meteorologist Kristine Hanson said.

That steady rain has also helped refill California’s reservoirs, with 14 of the 17 major ones at 70% or more capacity.

But that doesn’t mean these conditions are here to stay. Climatologists say we’re in a wait-and-see period to see how the rest of winter goes and what things look like come fire season.

“That back and forth is something California is well accustomed to,” Anderson said. “We’ll see then, as we get into February and March, when they start the growth cycle, if there’s continued moisture to allow for that and then fire season begins when those grasses begin to dry out.”

“The next week or so is supposed to be fairly dry and warm as well, so again, as quickly as we’ve seen these dry situations get tampered down and relieved, they could be developing again,” Fuchs said.

The Climate Prediction Center is projecting California to stay drought-free through the end of March, but they’re coming out with their monthly update next week, so we’ll see if those projections continue through April and into spring.