Three-day Storm Brought Needed Rain To California

LOS ANGELES — The storm that drenched California this week brought much-needed rain to the state, which has been slipping back into drought conditions due to a dry winter that only turned wet and snowy this month. Preliminary storm data Friday showed stunning totals for the three-day storm, including more than 10 inches of rain at locations in the Sierra Nevada and on the central coast, and 31 inches of snow at Tuolumne Meadows in the Sierra. In coastal Santa Barbara and Ventura counties northwest of Los Angeles, where drought conditions have been characterized as severe to extreme, many locations reported well over 5 inches of rain from the storm. Any addition to the Sierra snowpack is welcome: Runoff from the 400-mile-long range supplies about a third of the water used by Californians each year.