Good morning.

(Want to get California Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

The torrential rains that ripped through the state earlier this year and created the destructive and deadly mudslides in Montecito may make California’s drought seem like ancient history.

But much of California has, in reality, suffered through an unusually hot — and somewhat dry — winter.

A heat wave baked Southern California this week, breaking temperature records across the region. And officials say it has been warm in Northern California, too, causing much of the area’s precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow.

Even so, it hasn’t rained nearly as much as the previous year, which was extraordinarily wet. According to one important index, the northern Sierra Nevada has gotten only about 20 inches of rain since Oct. 1 — 70 percent of average for this time of year.