All this rain and flooding has not filled the reservoirs. The rain and flooding is highly visible, but not necessarily going into the locations that store the water for future use. Most of the runoff is finding its way back to the bay or other water outlets.

Another trick is the snow pack. A huge portion of our water comes from wet snow in the sierra's. The snow up there has been exceptionally dry. Hopefully some more storms like these recent storms will carry water up the hill for later use.

"It took three years to get this dry," said David Rizzardo, chief of the department's snow surveys section. "Barring an extraordinary year, it's going to take more than one year to get out of it."

The next two months will tell the tale, according to Rizzardo. The state could emerge from drought if the storms caused by that tempestuous weather maker known as El Niño keep coming, he said. But they would have to be particularly ferocious.

Forecasters are predicting regular storms until spring, but it is difficult for meteorologists to predict what will happen a week ahead, let alone several months in the future.

Although rainfall is now above normal in the Bay Area, Lake Oroville, the State Water Project's primary source of drinking water, is only 31 percent of capacity. That's about 48 percent of average for this date.

Reservoirs statewide, including Hetch Hetchy, appear to be doing relatively well, hovering around 72 percent of average. But most of them are tiny compared with Lake Oroville, which has a capacity of 3.5 million acre-feet of water. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, enough to cover an acre in a foot of water. Hetch Hetchy holds 360,400 acre-feet of water.

Rain and snow runoff in the northern Sierra feeds both Lake Oroville and the state's largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, which can hold 4.5 million acre-feet and is part of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Central Valley Project. Shasta is only half full. The two dams provide water to millions of people in cities up and down the state and on farms in the Central Valley.

The bottom line - Continue to conserve water. If you have the means, collect some of this rain water for your own garden in the spring.