It's too soon to celebrate the end of our drought

Ding-dong the drought is dead!

Seems that way lately, right?

OK, maybe the jubilation is a bit premature, but that notion is likely flitting through the minds of many Californians, what with the way the weather’s been acting for the last month or so. I haven’t seen stormy skies in November and December like this since I can’t remember when.

For a long time, it seemed you could almost guarantee that one week of exceedingly late Indian summer would suddenly wander into December like it got lost on the way out of October. Temperatures would spike near 90, and everyone would spend a weekend at the beach.

Then, that trend faded away, and we started getting a week of ridiculously frigid weather near the beginning of the month, an occasion that made the name of a North County rec soccer tournament — the Atascadero Freeze — more than appropriate.

Teeth would chatter, plants would die, but the only moisture would be the frost on the ground or the fog in the air.

This year, however, we’ve had nothing of either. Instead, it’s been clouds and rain, which combine to keep the temperatures mild while turning the wild grasses green.

Remember how long it took for the hills to change color last year? I don’t think it happened until February.

It’s rained so consistently that in the period of a week, the percentage of California experiencing “exceptional drought” dropped from 55 to 32, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

And government forecasters now think there’s a 75 percent chance the rain year will end up average or above average.

All of this unfamiliar wet stuff and sudden optimism might be enough to make a giddy Cambrian finally let a little water go down the drain for the first time in months. But don’t get ahead of yourselves, people in the pines or anywhere else, for that matter.

A recent NASA satellite analysis estimated it will still take some 11 trillion gallons of water for the state to officially recover from what remains of ongoing drought conditions.

Our reservoirs remain perilously low, and a lot more precipitation is needed at high elevations to build up the kind of thick snowpack that will provide a lasting stream of water from the mountains to the farmlands well into summer.

So while it’s OK to be encouraged, let’s keep conservation measures top of mind. The Pineapple Express may be delivering us a welcome tropical drink at the moment, but we all know happy hour could end as suddenly as it began.

This story was originally published December 20, 2014 at 5:41 PM with the headline "It's too soon to celebrate the end of our drought."