The strong Pacific storm that left Northern California a sodden mess will not have much impact on the state’s historic drought, meteorologists said Friday.

As the storm moved south into the Los Angeles area after causing floods, mudslides, power failures and at least two deaths in the north on Thursday, water levels in the state’s two largest reservoirs, Shasta and Oroville, showed some improvement. As of midnight Thursday, according to the state’s monitoring system, Shasta was at 29 percent of capacity, up from 23 percent on Dec. 1, and Oroville was at 30 percent, compared with 26 percent at the beginning of the month. Both reservoirs are still far below historic averages for mid-December.

Reservoirs are an incomplete and short-term gauge of the water situation. Snowpack levels in the mountains are more important, because the spring melt adds to the supply over time. And this storm was a warm one, so it produced snow only at higher elevations, said Jon Gottschalck of the Climate Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.