Thanks To Stormy Weather, Southern California Pulls Out Of Drought

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Thanks to a series of storms in March and the first half of April, Southern California is back out of its drought.

According to the latest map from the U.S. Drought Monitor Thursday, not a single county in Southern California is under a drought designation.

According to the National Weather Service, in March most areas of Southern California saw averages of 150 to 250 percent of normal rainfall.

Through April 16, downtown L.A. has recorded 3.02 inches of rain, according to the NWS. Normally, downtown L.A. averages 0.54 inches of rain through the same period of April.

All this has come after one of the driest January and February combinations on record. Los Angeles International Airport recorded a trace of rain in February, tying it for the driest February since records began at LAX back in 1944.

The U.S. Drought Monitor is released weekly as part of partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the USDA.