California Drought: Rain is in the Forecast, But It’s Not Enough

Feb 25, 2014

Rain is coming…but it won’t be enough to make a dent in California’s extreme drought conditions.

Weather forecasters are predicting that Northern California could receive some rainfall this week, but analysts say it will be unlikely to have a real impact on aiding the state’s ongoing drought woes.

According to the National Weather Service, two weather systems are expected to roll in – one on Wednesday evening and one on Friday. The storms could bring several inches of rain to the coast.

The state is dealing with what looks to be the driest year on record. Government officials say that every part of the state is experiencing some degree of drought, most notably the state’s agriculture regions.

What’s more concerning is that February tends to be the wettest month for California, which means the state is still well below average precipitation expectations for the month.

Despite the gloom, there is a glimmer of hope - some experts are predicting that the chance of an El Niño event occurring this summer is growing. If that does happen, it could bring heavy rainfall to the state.

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.