California Suffers Dry January, Prolonging Devastating Drought

California has experienced one of the driest Januarys on record, and the lack of rain during a time of year when the weather is usually wet indicates the state is likely headed for a fourth straight year of drought, officials said.

A prolonged drought could portend further economic and environmental setbacks for the nation's most populous state, which has already lost both crops and jobs to the dry weather.

The state's driest January on record was in 1984, when the 30-day average precipitation in the state reached 0.33 of an inch (0.84 cm), under one method used to gauge rainfall statewide, said National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Mathews.

With the official measurement of this January's rainfall coming within a few days, it is shaping up to be the fourth driest January on record in the state, Mathews said.

The low rainfall combined with warmer-than-average temperatures have resulted in a meager snow pack, the California Department of Water Resources said in a statement.

A survey conducted on Thursday at a site called Echo summit in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which normally constitutes the state's largest store of fresh surface water, showed the snow pack at just 12 percent of normal, the statement said.

The survey findings make it "likely that California's drought will run through a fourth consecutive year," it said.

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