U.

S Drought Crisis
A closer look at the drought crisis in the United States of America
Mnica Rentera - July 12, y

Local Map of Los

Angeles County
The photo above illustrates a local view of Los Angeles County. At this local scale we can see
that Los Angeles County is suffering from an exceptional drought classified as a D4 category.
California has Mediterranean climate which typically means that each year we experience a fixed
about of rainfall followed by a period of temperate climate. However, this has not been the case for
California for the couple of years. Due to the lack of rainfall, combined with low snowed pack in North
California has led to a shortfall in available water resources for the entire state. Currently in its fourth
year, the drought has led to extremely dry weather, causing much of Californias agriculture to suffer.
We are noticing more dry regions in Southern California as an effort to comply with governors
Browns executive order directing the State Water Resource Control Board to implement mandatory

water reductions in
cities and towns across California to reduce potable urban water usage by 25 percent statewide.
http://dpw.lacounty.gov/wwd/web/Conservation/Drought.aspx

Regional Map of SouthWest United States

A regional view of the SouthWest provides perspective on the reach of the drought that extends
north into cities such as Fresno and Merced beyond Los Angeles County making this a state issue
rather than a local one. Areas East of California including Las Vegas are classified in the moderate
drought category demonstrating a gradual reduction in the severity of drought as observing further
away from the areas seeing far lower than average rainfall. California Climate Station Precipitation
Summary the PON (percent of normal) rainfall up to date in California is about 41% and in Nevada it
is 53%. According to current results and weather DB the average annual rainfall in Nevada is 4.2in
while Los Angeles sees 14in* of rain. This gives Los Angeles an additional 4in of rainfall even with
Nevada having 53% less rainfall. Water sources for the two cites differ as well as the water
conservation efforts. In a Los Vegas Sun Article the state of California is said to have less aggressive
legislative action against water conservation than Nevada who enforced many new conservation
policys and allocated funds to aid their drought.

14 is a rough average between the two results given on the webpages (14.9 and 12.9)
http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/awipsProducts/RNOWRKCLI.php
http://lasvegassun.com/news/2015/apr/27/tips-california-what-nevada-has-done-conserve-wate/
http://rainfall.weatherdb.com/
http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-precipitation-by-city.php

Continental
Map of the
United States
of America

One the lager continental scale we see that more eastern states begging in eastern Montana, Wyoming,
Colorado, and New Mexico sees drought however only on levels of D0 or D1 with some spotted D2 levels in the
state of Florida. The drought lines follow the path of the Rocky Mountain peaks. The snow melt runoff is
supplied the West coast through mainly the Colorado river while there are about 6 main rivers running off of the
Rockys to the East. In addition to high water usage, a lack of rain and local snow melt the greater supply of the
nations snowmelt is not being naturally directed to the west coast. The map calls great attention to the spread of
the drought as it covers almost all areas west of the Rockys with some degree of drought.