A very wet winter has left California's reservoirs looking healthier than they have for years, as near-record rainfall put a big dent in a lengthy drought.
The state's 40 million residents had chafed under repeated warnings to save water, with restrictions on irrigating gardens that left lawns dead or dying.
Vegetation dried up, with hillsides a parched brown, and ripe for wildfires.
But then the winter of 2022-23 roared into action, and trillions of gallons of water fell from the skies.
Rivers and creeks that had slowed to a trickle or even vanished entirely sprang to life.
Mountains were buried under hundreds of inches (many meters) of snow, and the state's ski resorts began talking about a bumper season that could last all the way into July.
Official statistics from the US Drought Monitor released last week show around two-thirds of California is completely out of the drought.
A year ago the entire state was in a drought.
California's Department of Water Resources says major reservoirs are overtopping their average capacity.
Lake Oroville, one of the most important bodies of water in the state, is now around 88 percent full, storing almost twice the amount of water as it did a year ago.
Pictures taken almost exactly a year apart show a marked contrast -- in April 2022, a puny stream trickles through a valley, but this year the valley is full of water.
The Enterprise Bridge now spans a body of water, where last year its footings stood starkly in the dusty bank, with just a small creek passing underneath.
Wet winters are not new in California, but scientists say human-cause climate change is exacerbating the so-called "weather whiplash" that sees very hot and dry periods give way to extremely soggy months.
Adel Hagekhalil of the Metropolitan Water District that serves Southern California told Spectrum News 1 that people should still conserve their supplies.
"We need to save and build the savings... so when we have another dry year, and hot days and dry days, we can respond," he said.
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© Agence France-Presse
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