NASA researchers said Tuesday to forget about the possibility that a single "atmospheric river" storm could end California's worst drought in at least 1,200 years.
Instead, new data shows that it will take 11 trillion gallons of water, which is one and a half times the capacity of Lake Mead, Nevada, the country's largest reservoir, to climb out of the water deficit the Golden State is in. The NASA analysis comes from satellite and aircraft-based measurements of groundwater and mountain snowpack in California, and was released at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on Tuesday morning.
The data also comes a week after a severe storm hit California, dumping more than nine inches of rain in some places, and just before another storm hits central and northern California.