California's drought has reached epic proportions, prompting Governor Jerry Brown and state water regulators to adopt "unprecedented" (and some say draconian) measures to counter what is perhaps the only example of a liquidity crisis more acute than that which investors face in secondary bond markets.

Cities will be forced to cut consumption by as much as 36%, a mandate that is expected to cost utilities upwards of $1 billion, lost revenue which, as we noted earlier this week, will promptly be recouped in the form of higher prices for any consumer who isn’t a MotherFracker.

So with the state preparing to crack down on “wasters” in the form of $10,000 fines, and with more than 12 million dead trees greatly increasing the chances that wildfires could spread out of control, we bring you the drought in pictures:

We'll leave you with the following rather somber assessment from a professor of public policy at USC (via Politico):