In need of rain

This year, California experienced the driest January and February in the state’s recorded history.

The entire Sierra Nevada mountain range currently has an average of only 16 inches of water in the snow, or 66 percent of normal, according to SFGate.com. Annually, the snowpack provides about a third of the state’s water for agricultural and human consumption, but only 2.2 inches of rain have fallen in the mountains ranging from Shasta Lake to the American River since December, which is only 13 percent of the average rainfall for this time of year.

The next-driest first two months of the year occurred in 1991, when four inches of precipitation fell in the same area.