If the polar bear is the iconic image beloved of climate alarmists, then California is a location – possibly the location – most favoured by the Guardian when seeking to convince us that the end is nigh thanks to the climate crisis (sic). It’s got the lot – drought, floods, epic wildfires, storms. Make an internet search using the terms “California”, “climate” and “Guardian newspaper” and your search engine will produce dozens, if not hundreds, of results. There are too many to reference in a short article, so here are just a few from the last three years.

Starting on 27th January 2023 there was real hope that the ongoing drought (reported on ad nauseam by the Guardian in the preceding years) would be relieved by heavy snowfall. The good news was reported thus: “As of Tuesday, the snowpack stood at 222% of average for this time of year, and was 127% of average for the entire wet season, marked on 1 April.” Of course, it couldn’t be allowed to undermine the “climate crisis” narrative. Thus, it was described as being the result of “extreme weather” that had “hammered” California in the early weeks of the year. Furthermore, we were treated to the following dire warning:

California has always been prone to flips between weather extremes, switching swiftly from wet to dry. But the climate crisis is turning up the dial, intensifying conditions on both sides of the spectrum. Models show that, while a warmer atmosphere may produce more precipitation, that will be buffered by longer dry periods. Heat also causes faster melt-off and a greater chance of rain over snow, which has hampered efforts to capture and store water during deluges, critically changing the state’s hydrologic system, according to the California department of water resources.

Just over two months later, on 1st April 2023 we were told that it was a case of “Drought or no drought? California left pondering after record winter deluge”. Described as a boon (because it re-filled reservoirs) the significant winter precipitation still had to be described in fairly apocalyptic terms: “Then came a deluge. A dozen atmospheric river storms and several “bomb cyclones” have broken levees and buried mountain communities in snow….”. Bomb cyclones, eh? I bet we never had those before.

Still, in fairness to the Guardian, it did lay bare California’s drought problem, and it has nothing to do with a climate crisis, whether real or imagined:

…Decades of water mismanagement have drained California’s groundwater aquifers, which have supplied 60% of the state’s water during drought years. A recent study found that groundwater depletion has been accelerating in recent years, and estimated that groundwater in the Central Valley shrunk by about 36m acre-feet since 2003. That’s greater than the total capacity of Lake Mead, the biggest US surface reservoir.

The state’s groundwater has declined so much that in parts of the agricultural Central Valley, where water is pumped to irrigate vast fields as well as cities and towns, the ground has been sinking by about 1ft every year. As water levels drop, layers of soil and clay are collapsing and compacting down as well….

…Even during wet years, California’s farms pump more groundwater than is ever replenished, while rural communities across the state suffer from chronic shortfalls. …

Fast-forward just under a year to 6th February 2024, and the wet theme continued. The Guardian’s use of extreme language was, for once, probably appropriate – it seems fair to say that California was “battered” by a storm which delivered massive amounts of rain, resulting in mudslides and deaths. The Mayor of Los Angeles was reported as having described it as an “historic storm” with “unprecedented rain”. However, it seems that, dreadful though the storm was, it wasn’t actually unprecedented:

“We’re talking about one of the wettest storm systems to impact the greater Los Angeles area” since records began, Ariel Cohen, chief NWS meteorologist in LA, told an evening news conference. “Going back to the 1870s, this is one of the top three.” [My emphasis].

A week later we were told that the rain, which fell as snow on higher ground, had gone a long way towards replenishing the snow pack. Remember that thirteen months earlier it stood at 222% of average. Now, however, despite all the snow, the statewide total had climbed to just 73% of average (from a meagre 52% a fortnight earlier).

Moving on a year or so and despite massive amounts of rain and snow, the drought just wouldn’t go away. Apparently a month’s worth of rain in a day in February 2025 wasn’t enough to counter the extended lack of rain in October 2024 – January 2025. That very dry period followed by extremely heavy rain gave the Guardian an excuse to introduce us to (or remind us of) “weather whiplash”, which we were told is “a telltale sign of the climate crisis”. And the water shortage gave the Guardian a great opportunity to tell us that the Colorado River was near a “tipping point”. Extreme drought was intensifying across the southwest United States.

What a difference a year (or less) makes. Three days ago the Guardian headline told us that “California is completely drought-free for the first time in 25 years”. The strange thing is that in February 2025 the Guardian was telling us despite rain and snow, the drought was intensifying. But eleven months later, we learn that “Some wet years and recent winter storms have helped bring the state out of drought after years of insufficient rainfall”. And so, it’s the first time since the year 2000 that not a single square mile of California is dry on the US Drought Monitor.

Good news, one might think. Not so fast. There’s still that pesky snowpack to worry about. Recent measurements from the Phillips station in the Sierra Nevada found California’s snow levels currently stand around 70% of what is average for this time of year. And since melt from the snowpack provides about a third of the water used in the state I think we can rest easy in the knowledge that before long the Guardian will offer up another climate crisis article about California. For now, though, just enjoy the fact that the crisis is over – until the next weather (dry or wet, calm or stormy) generates the next story. And don’t forget, when the Guardian once more reports about a Claifornian drought, “even during wet years, California’s farms pump more groundwater than is ever replenished”.

9 Comments

  1. When wondering whether 21st century droughts are the result of climate change (let alone a “climate crisis”) it’s always worth considering the historical record – and when doing so, remembering that there weren’t in the same past all those tens of millions of people, and associated agriculture hoovering up the water supply:

    https://ocp.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/nineteenth.shtml

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  2. Since 2018, we have made three hiking trips to the Sierra Nevada in late June. One year there was hardly any snow around, one year was perfect for alpine flowers and the third year there was so much late snow we couldn’t even get to the high elevation trailheads. Based on this statistically significant large sample, precipitation in California is incredibly variable. Joking aside, most areas of the World have significant climate variability. In Canada the met agencies talk about “climate normals”. The only thing normal about climate is variability. This simple fact is ignored by our climate activists.

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  3. Mark – thanks for a “brief history of climate porn” at the Guardian.

    A bit O/T but related – German Media Report That Current Frigid Weather Can Be Explained By Arctic Warming!

    Partial quote by Pierre L. Gosselin – “The article explains why severe winters in Germany do not contradict global warming. The core argument lies in the distinction between weather (short-term events) and climate (long-term trends). That of course gets ignored by the media when there’s a hot summer day”

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Google tells me that the biggest water consumers farming wise are almonds, alfalfa and dairy cattle farms. So the almond milk beloved of the sage the planet brigade is not helping their cause, is it?

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Oh yes Mark, California (and the Pacific North West region in particular) is a rich seam of extreme weather/climate change propaganda, a veritable gold mine you might say. Every time it rains or snows hard, the climate propagandists come up with a new nugget, and when it doesn’t they find more! A phenomenon known as ‘Woe is Nigh’ Whiplash.

    I have to inform readers however that there is a strong possibility that all this extreme weather toing and froing it is not ‘just weather’ but . . . . something else.

    The ocean heat content of the north Pacific basin has increased significantly since 2010, much more than the global average. Also, in the last couple of years, sea surface temperatures in the north Pacific have shot up, because more sunshine has warmed the water, NOT because CO2 has prevented heat from escaping!

    A vast swath of the North Pacific Ocean just logged its warmest summer ever, puzzling scientists and fuelling concerns about unexpected climate impacts. The so-called “warm blob,” spanning from Asia’s east coast to North America’s west, saw average sea surface temperatures from July to September rise more than 0.25 degrees Celsius above the previous record, according to a BBC analysis of data from the European Copernicus climate service—a significant jump over an area about 10 times the size of the Mediterranean. This spike is well beyond what most climate models predicted, with some experts putting the odds of such temperatures at less than 1% in any given year.

    Researchers attribute part of the warming to natural weather swings, such as weaker winds allowing more heat to linger at the ocean’s surface. But climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth says natural variability alone can’t account for the scale of the anomaly. He notes a recent drop in sulfur pollution from shipping fuel may have reduced sun-reflecting particles that had previously triggered a cooling effect. Other research suggests reduced air pollution in China could also play a role, as the polluted air reflected sunlight away. The heat isn’t just a statistical oddity: it’s impacting weather on both sides of the Pacific, likely intensifying heatwaves in Japan (which also had its hottest summer on record) and South Korea and fueling storms and “atmospheric rivers” in the US. It could also affect wildlife, per CNN.

    https://www.newser.com/story/377084/north-pacifics-record-breaking-heat-is-an-anomaly.html?taid=68f63fb78b6f490001b14089

    In other news, a ‘new study’ reported upon by Phys.org tells us that “North Pacific winter storm tracks shifting poleward much faster than predicted”:

    One major factor contributing to climate change in both regions is the northward shift of winter storm tracks across the North Pacific Ocean. These storms transport heat and moisture from Earth’s warmer regions toward the pole; when their tracks shift northward, more heat and moisture reach Alaska, while natural ventilation of the southwestern United States is reduced, driving temperatures upward.

    In a new study published in Nature, Dr. Rei Chemke of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Earth and Planetary Sciences Department and Dr. Janni Yuval of Google Research show that the storms’ northward shift is occurring much faster than climate models have predicted. Moreover, using a new metric based on sea-level pressure—a parameter measured consistently for decades—the researchers found that this shift is not part of natural climate variability but rather a clear consequence of climate change.

    The findings add to a series of Chemke’s previous studies pointing to a troubling pattern: Earth’s storm tracks are changing rapidly, and climate models don’t always account for that.

    So yes, it’s not ‘natural climate variability’, aka ‘just weather’, it is in fact, the dreaded climate change lurgy. But is it? Because this is the amusing part; by their own admission, the authors say that the climate models (forced by increasing CO2) fail to capture this fast change in storm tracks. Yet somehow, mysteriously, the authors show that it’s not ‘natural variability’ that is causing this, it’s ‘climate change’ which the models didn’t account for obviously! Either that, or it’s pesky man-made reductions in sulphur pollution, allowing more sunlight to penetrate the oceans. Perish the thought that any change in the ocean-atmosphere system might in fact be natural!

    Shall I tell you about a natural event which is a prime suspect in all of this most recent extreme weather variability in the north Pacific? Hunga Tonga! Yes, that grudgingly acknowledged but extraordinarily downplayed (by the consensus climate establishment) volcanic driver of abrupt climate change, principally via its effect upon global atmospheric circulation, the dissipation of low lying clouds and a consequent shifting north of storm tracks in the northern latitudes!

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  6. Nicely done, Jaime . You make a lot of serious and important points that undermine the official narrative. Without taking anything away from that, I think my favourite part of your comment is nevertheless Woe is Nigh Whiplash. 😉

    Liked by 1 person

  7. For your enjoyment and appreciation of natural california water variability. In this before-and-after composite image, a comparison of water levels at Lake Oroville between July 22, 2021, and June 15, 2023.

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  8. Oroville can hold 3.5 million acre-feet of water, with the peak flow from the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains occurring in April. In September 2021, water levels in Oroville dipped to their lowest ever at 628.47 feet, at just 24% capacity. Storage at Lake Oroville has risen more than 240 feet and gained more than 2.5 million acre-feet of water since Dec. 1, 2022. Here is a shoreline picnic table, June 15, 2023

    Liked by 1 person

  9. With all the rain and moisture in the soils, there will be a very good growing season. As California doesn’t believe in preventative fire to stop the problem, this will cause massive fires in the late summer when winds dry everything out. So the fires can then be blamed on climate change , not bureaucratic ineptitude. Heads I win, tails you lose stuff.

    Liked by 2 people

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