On this page you can select "State" (in Area Type) to zoom in on California. Compare this March 7 2023 to March 8 2022 and March 9 2021 to see the effect of the recent rains on the severity of the drought.<p>For this time of year, this is the best we've had since 2019.<p>The Drought Monitor has been a team effort since its inception in 1999, produced jointly by the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NOAA, and the USDA.