California is drought-free for first time in years. What it means.

California is drought-free for the first time in more than three years because of a remarkably wet, snowy winter and a rare tropical storm over the summer. The last remaining traces of drought disappeared in October, as autumn rainstorms grazed the northwestern corner of the state.

Last year at this time, California faced a deepening water crisis amid “extreme” and “exceptional” drought, and officials feared another dry winter because of La Niña, the climate pattern that tends to reduce precipitation in southern and central California. It was the culmination of the three driest years on record, a period defined by parched reservoirs, heat waves and record-breaking wildfires.