Not to rain on your parade, but latest storm won't erase drought

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Southern California may have enjoyed a rare October storm Monday, but experts say don't expect it to erase concerns about the statewide drought crisis.

"It's going to take multiple systems like this to really have any impact on our drought," said Mark Jackson, the National Weather Service's meteorologist in charge of the Los Angeles and Oxnard office.

The latest maps from the U.S. Drought Monitor show every part of the California is classified as in a drought. More than 85% of the state is suffering through extreme drought conditions, and nearly half the state has "exceptional drought" status, the worst category.

"What we're going to need to really kind of get our way completely out of this drought is to have several or at least a good wet season and even a couple of good wet seasons in a row," Jackson told Eyewitness News. "Right now the odds are we are going to have a dry season."

Jackson says Southern California relies on three major sources of water: the Colorado River, groundwater and snowpack on the Southern Sierra. The snowpack is the source most important.

"That's the water that keeps on giving," Jackson said. "That helps to fill the reservoirs of course, which then can help supply that third source of water for Southern California."

Unfortunately, meteorologists are calling for a weak La Niña this winter, which means less rain than usual.