[HN Gopher] California is free of drought for the first time in ...
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       California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years
        
       Author : thnaks
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2026-01-20 22:39 UTC (20 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.latimes.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.latimes.com)
        
       | bwoah wrote:
       | https://archive.is/aB3c4
        
       | kens wrote:
       | As John Steinback said in _East of Eden_ :
       | 
       | "I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful.
       | But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the
       | valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be
       | five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen
       | to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with
       | grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve
       | to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and
       | sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The
       | land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches
       | high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The
       | live oaks got a crusty look and the sage-brush was gray. The land
       | cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly
       | nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the ranchers would be
       | filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley. The cows would grow
       | thin and sometimes starve to death. People would have to haul
       | water in barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families
       | would sell out for nearly nothing and move away. And it never
       | failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich
       | years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry
       | years. It was always that way."
        
       | guywithahat wrote:
       | This is really cool but please don't attribute this to the
       | success or failure of any politician. The CA droughts come and go
       | through by multi-decade natural cycles, and have no more to do
       | with current politics than Trump did with the recent
       | electromagnetic storms
        
       | johnsmith1840 wrote:
       | The dams in california were built years ago for a smaller
       | population and since then they've only removed them.
       | 
       | If we simply built like the people who first came to california
       | did we would never have water shortages again.
       | 
       | Any water shortage is a 1:1 failure of the state to do the clear
       | and obvious task needed.
        
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       (page generated 2026-01-20 23:00 UTC)