California’s Rainy Season Now Starts a Month Later Than It Used To

The start of California’s rainy season has been getting progressively later in recent decades, and now begins a month after it did just 60 years ago, shifting from November to December, according to a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Scientists say the delay in the start of the rain has prolonged the state’s wildfire season and exacerbated water shortages.

Last year was California’s worst wildfire season on record, with nearly 10,000 fires burning more than 4.2 million acres.

“What we’ve shown is that it will not happen in the future, it’s happening already,” Jelena Luković, a climate scientist at the University of Belgrade in Serbia and lead author of the new study, said in a statement. “The onset of the rainy season has been progressively delayed since the 1960s, and as a result the precipitation season has become shorter and sharper in California.”

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