By Jay Lund, KQED

California is a big, diverse place.

California probably will experience droughts this year of different types in different places, and no drought at all in some places, simultaneously. Even if conditions this year are very wet, with flooding, parts of California will have drought issues. (This is what makes California a great place to work on water problems.)

The first two months of this new water year have been wetter than average in the north and much drier than average in the south. But it is still early days.

Reservoir storage in California is now about 2.5 million acre-feet (3.08 billion cubic meters) below historical averages for this time of year. (This is 0.8 million acre-feet – 987 million cubic meters – better than two months ago.) Some major reservoirs are below average, particularly Oroville, Trinity, San Luis, New Melones and the Tulare Basin. Cachuma Reservoir near Santa Barbara is in the worst shape at 7 percent of capacity or 10 percent of average storage for this time of year.

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