A snowless April and a 28% allocation: California water in 2026

California's 2026 water year will be remembered for a contradiction. Reservoirs were full: Lake Oroville sat at 99% of capacity in May and statewide storage ran well above average³. But a record-hot March melted the Sierra snowpack weeks early, the April 1 survey found no measurable snow at Phillips Station, and the statewide snowpack stood at 18% of average, the second lowest on record². Farms that depend on federal water south of the Delta started the season at 15% of contract and finished the summer at 28%^{4, 5}. Here is how the year unfolded, what it did to acreage, and what it means for the produce that moves through Los Angeles.

Two projects, two sets of numbers

Most irrigated farmland in the San Joaquin Valley draws on one of two systems, and often both. The State Water Project, run by the Department of Water Resources, serves 29 public water agencies that supply about 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland³. The federal Central Valley Project, run by the Bureau of Reclamation, serves irrigation districts and cities the length of the valley, and its south-of-Delta agricultural contractors, among them Westlands Water District on the west side of Fresno and Kings counties, are typically the last in line when water is short^{4, 6}.

Each December, DWR issues an initial SWP allocation as a share of what contractors requested, then revises it monthly as snow and rain arrive, with a final figure usually set in May or June¹. Reclamation issues its initial CVP allocations in late February and updates them through the summer⁴. The 2026 allocations tell the story in percentages.

How the year unfolded

DWR opened the water year on December 1, 2025 with a 10% SWP allocation, a conservative first call that assumes dry conditions for the rest of the year¹. December storms were generous. On January 29, 2026, DWR raised the allocation to 30%, with statewide reservoirs at 125% of average and Oroville at 138%¹. A December amendment to the project's fish-protection permit let the state pump an extra 15,000 acre-feet during the storms, enough for 45,000 homes for a year, and Metropolitan Water District's general manager said the increase meant Southern California could meet more of its demand with state supplies¹. The State Water Contractors' general manager was blunter: the storms of the 2026 water year might already be in the rear-view mirror¹.

She was right. January was dry and warm, and March set temperature records across the West. On April 1, DWR's snow survey at Phillips Station found no measurable snow. The statewide snowpack was 18% of average, and the Northern Sierra, which feeds the largest reservoirs, was at 6%². DWR said the snowpack had probably peaked around February 24, weeks ahead of schedule; precipitation had been near average in many areas, but it fell as rain rather than snow, so it ran off instead of banking in the mountains². Snowpack normally supplies about 30% of California's water, and DWR Director Karla Nemeth said it felt like the state had skipped spring and dropped straight into a summer heatwave².

Reclamation's initial CVP allocation came out on February 25: 15% of contract for south-of-Delta irrigation contractors and 65% of historic use for south-of-Delta cities⁴. It moved to 20% and 70% on March 24, to 25% and 75% on May 19, and to 28% and 78% on August 11^{4, 5}. Announcing the August increase, Assistant Secretary Andrea Travnicek said more reliable water meant more for California's farmers, families and communities, and acting regional director Adam Nickels said careful monitoring and water supply management had made the increase possible in a dynamic year⁵.

DWR, meanwhile, raised the SWP allocation to 45% in mid-May. Oroville was at 99% of capacity and statewide reservoirs at 117% of average, but the snowpack was down to 12% of average, and flexible operations plus April runoff had added about 400,000 acre-feet to Oroville³. Nemeth's warning was about next year: the stored water had to be used carefully because there was no backfill until the following season³.

The acreage behind the percentages

Westlands Water District, which serves nearly 700 family-owned farms on the west side of Fresno and Kings counties, is the clearest barometer of what low allocations do⁶. In December 2025 the district reported that chronic water shortages had taken more than 215,000 acres out of production in 2025, about 38% of its irrigable farmland, with more fallowing expected as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act tightens pumping limits⁷. Its board certified an environmental review for a plan to repurpose up to 136,000 acres of drainage-impaired and water-short land for solar generation, storage and transmission, with a potential 21 gigawatts at full buildout⁷.

When the 15% initial allocation came out in February, general manager Allison Febbo said it did not reflect hydrologic conditions after storms had ended the drought, improved the snowpack and raised reservoir storage, and that it fell well short of what the district's farms needed⁶. The district's position all year was that aging infrastructure and limited storage, not just hydrology, were holding allocations down⁶.

The longer arc is bigger than one district. The Public Policy Institute of California estimated in 2023 that the San Joaquin Valley irrigated about 4.5 million acres using 16.1 million acre-feet of water in 2018, and that groundwater limits, climate change and environmental flows could cut available water by roughly 20% by 2040⁸. In PPIC's worst case, nearly 900,000 acres would come out of irrigated production; even with new supplies and active water trading, close to half a million acres would⁸. The valley produces more than half of California's agricultural output, including almost $20 billion a year in orchards and vines and about $2.8 billion in vegetables⁸.

What it means for Los Angeles buyers

Southern California's own taps are not the issue this year. The SWP and the Colorado River together supply about half the water used in Southern California, and Metropolitan said its storage and diversified supplies let it meet demand regardless of a given year's allocation, even with Colorado River Basin snowpack at historically low levels¹. The issue is upstream, in the fields.

The grapes, pomegranates and persimmons we ship from Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties come from permanent plantings, and permanent plantings are the last thing a grower stops watering. PPIC's modeling shows water moving away from alfalfa and irrigated pasture toward higher-value specialty crops as supplies tighten, which tends to keep orchards and vineyards irrigated while lower-value acres go idle⁸. That keeps fruit volumes steadier than the allocation numbers suggest, but it moves cost onto the grower, who buys water or pumps it, and over time it moves acreage. Westlands' 215,000 fallowed acres in 2025 are the measurable version of that pressure⁷.

The 2026 allocations rose all summer and reservoirs stayed above average, which took the worst-case scenarios off the table for this season^{3, 4}. The warning in every DWR release was about next year: there is no backfill for the stored water until the next wet season³. If the winter of 2026-27 is dry, 2027 allocations will start low against thinner carryover, and that is when planting decisions for annual vegetables get made. We will keep tracking the December SWP call and the late-February CVP numbers and pass them along, because they are the earliest signal of what California acreage will look like next summer.