http://www.newsweek.com/newsweek-com-california-drought-map-before-after-extreme-rain-1772745

After two weeks of extreme rainfall across California, the severe drought that has gripped most of the state in recent months is beginning to ease. But it will need more than a few weeks of rain to ease the overarching megadrought that has gripped the southwestern U.S. over the past two decades.

"The past three years have been the driest three-year period on record," Jeff Mount, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California Water Policy Center, told Newsweek. "That just beats the driest three-year period on record from 2013 to 2015. And both of these three-year periods have been the hottest on record.