California drought has created worst conditions in 1,200 years

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A combination of record high temperatures and sparse rainfall during California’s three-year drought has produced the worst conditions in 1,200 years, according to a study accepted for publication by the American Geophysical Union.

The state has gone through numerous periods of dry weather, with as little rainfall as the past few years, but scientists looking at the cumulative effects of temperature, low precipitation and other factors said it all adds up to the worst conditions in more than a millennium.

“The current California drought is exceptionally severe in the context of at least the last millennium and is driven by reduced though not unprecedented precipitation and record high temperatures,” the report’s authors said in the study released late Thursday.

The study by the University of Minnesota and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said warm, dry conditions have shrunk the supply of surface water from reservoirs, streams and the Sierra Nevada snowpack, even as demand from people and farms has gone up, resulting in unprecedented scarcity.

Despite its conclusion that several factors add up to the worst conditions in 1,200 years, the report’s authors point out that six years during that period were possibly drier than 2014, and that three-year droughts are not unusual.

The report comes as California is experiencing a wet start to December that could result in 12 inches of rain and a few feet of snow over the next two weeks, according to Accuweather.