State is declared 100% drought free ahead of a wet El Niño winter

California is drought-free ahead of a winter predicted to be plenty wet.

A state once gripped with arid conditions and water stress has bounced back to conditions similar to what was monitored in March 2020. No one is living in a drought area, according to a Thursday update from the U.S. Drought Monitor, a significant decrease from roughly 3,000 people in October and roughly 9,800 people in September.

Approximately 903,000 people remained in drought areas in August.

The update showed 0% of California has “moderate drought,” down from 0.07% on Oct. 10. Roughly 6% of the state — parts of Del Norte, Siskiyou, Modoc, San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial counties — remains “abnormally dry” as of Tuesday. Before that, conditions teetered between 25% and 32% from May to mid-August.

The state has been free of “severe,” “extreme” and “exceptional” drought conditions since April. Drought conditions briefly spiked to 0.24% on Sept. 19 before decreasing to less than 0.1% one week later for the first time since February 2020.

The state has been free of “moderate” drought since Oct. 17.

California's highly anticipated wet winter season could alleviate the state's stubborn dry spots.

But the relief could be brief, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Most of the state is expected to receive wet conditions this winter as El Niño makes its way through Earth's northern portion of the equator. El Niño and its counterpart La Niña are climate phenomenons that can affect weather patterns across the globe with extreme pressure systems, rainfall and wind, the National Weather Service wrote on its website.

According to an Oct. 19 seasonal outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there's between a 33% and 50% chance winter temperatures this year will lean above normal.

NOAA outlooks show “equal” chances of abovenormal, near-normal or below-normal in the southernmost portion of the state. Meaning, there is no clear indication of how much rain the state could receive, according to the National Weather Service.

Chances of rain are also above normal for the majority of the state.