Drought in Mountains Southwest Shasta County To Northern Lake County, California

The drought continues to impact Lake County, with farmers clipping some wine grape vines, reducing irrigation needed this summer, while also reducing their harvest. Agriculture and related businesses have continued to lose jobs.

The long term drought continued through July. While quite a few mountain locations received greater than normal precipitation due to moisture from the monsoon and from ex-hurricane Dolores, this made little impact on the drought overall. The main affects were in decreasing fire activity in areas where locally heavy rain fell. Without a snow pack, reservoirs across the area by the end of the month were continuing to drop well below normal levels.

Extreme drought continued to be detected by the U.S. Drought Monitor across most the region, with exceptional drought for the northern San Joaquin Valley, the central and southern Sacramento Valley, the Burney Basin and the Sierra.

The warm, dry winter left vegetation parched and ready to burn. Wildfire activity was well above normal levels, with California experiencing 4,201 wildfires that consumed 100,000 acres through August 1, much higher than the five-year average of 2,729 fires burning 48,153 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Rocky Fire alone burned 69,000 acres in Lake, Yolo and Colusa counties and destroyed 43 homes and 53 outbuildings as of August 6. Additional fast burning wildfires include the Wragg, Lowell, and Kyburz fires.

Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency for the entire state of California January 17, 2014 and this continued to be in effect.

Local Emergency Proclamations have been issued for El Dorado, Glenn, Lake, Plumas, San Joaquin, Shasta, Sutter, Tuolumne, and Yuba counties. The cities of Live Oak Lodi, and Ripon continue in a drought emergency. Drought task forces have been established in Butte, Lake, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Tuolumne, and Yolo counties to coordinate response to the drought.

Mandatory water reductions of 25 percent as ordered by Governor Brown continue to be in effect statewide, the first time such mandatory restrictions have been enacted.

Agriculture has been heavily impacted, with numerous farm and farm related jobs lost. The state continued to supply food assistance to those impacted. California Disaster Assistance Act money continued to be provided for those who have lost drinking water due to dry wells.

Additional impacts included low runoff in streams and rivers on fish and ecological affects on forests and wildlife.