With more rain and snow on the way, the supposed “unending drought” that the New York Times reported on last year has, in a matter of weeks, ended — at least in Northern California.

Yesterday’s color satellite imagery from NASA shows the dramatic changes which have occurred since the same date three years ago:

– Widespread and deep snowpack

– Greening vegetation

– Rivers overflowing their banks

– Strong river discharge into the Pacific Ocean



Here’s a zoomed version of the NASA Terra MODIS image yesterday covering the San Francisco Bay area northeastward toward Sacramento:



The latest GFS model forecast for the next 10 days predicts another 2 to 10 inches of rain, depending on location, with several more feet of snow at higher elevations.