Officials: More than 40 percent of California out of drought

(AP) — More than 40 percent of California has emerged from a punishing drought that covered the whole state a year ago, federal drought-watchers said Thursday, a stunning transformation caused by an unrelenting series of storms in the North that filled lakes, overflowed rivers and buried mountains in snow.

Just 2 percent of the state, a swath between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, remains in the sharpest category of drought that includes drying wells, reservoirs and streams and widespread crop losses.

State officials said this week that Brown will likely wait until the end of California's winter snow and rain season to make a decision on revising the drought declaration.

For Northern California, at least, the onslaught of storms that brought the Sierras their heaviest snow in six years and forced voluntary evacuations of thousands of people as rivers surged will likely make it a much clearer call for the governor, water experts said.

Water experts look at factors including soil moisture, stream levels and snow pack in determining drought, said Claudia Faunt, a San Diego-based hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.