Angelika The last winter and spring finally brought a lot of rain and snow to the higher elevations of California, which hopefully will help our drought-stricken state get through the fire season better. Of course, a good winter can't make up for years of drought, but it certainly helps. So the water reservoirs have been filled again (8 out of 12 are back to 75% according to official sources). The snow cover in the mountains has grown back to a healthy level and only 5% of California's land area is left in drought conditions.
In California it is now actually so that one has to plan their leisure activities around the extreme weather phenomena. In the hotter months we often hear: "We actually want to go hiking and camping, but we don't know exactly where yet, because we have to see where the forest fires will happen this year." My brother and sister-in-law, who visited us last September, for example, could not go to Lake Tahoe because a forest fire nearby had so badly deteriorated the air quality that staying in the open air was classified as extremely hazardous to one's health. When we then took advantage of the rebooked short trip a in May of this year, it was still snowing in Lake Tahoe, and at the same time the snowmelt had set in, which led to flooded hiking trails. Crazy new world. However, the crowds of people who usually populate Lake Tahoe were notably absent from the attraction, and we almost had the beach and lake with the still snow-covered mountains all to ourselves.