Recent cold weather in the Ayacucho region of south-central Peru is being blamed for the deaths of up to 180,000 alpacas.

These usually hardy animals appear to have been made vulnerable to the cold weather by a series of ongoing environmental factors.

Much of the region has been experiencing drought conditions since August last year. Lack of water in lagoons had a direct effect on the alpacas' breeding season.

Lack of rainfall also resulted in stunted grass growth, so the animals have endured poor grazing for several months, weakening them further.

Large numbers of deaths of alpacas, and the other South American camelids - llamas, vicunas and guanacos - are not unknown.

Outbreaks of extremely cold air from the Antarctic, known as friagens, occur during the winter months. The friagen of 2003 killed more than half of all the country's alpacas when temperatures plunged to minus 35 Celsius. Last winter's cold weather reportedly killed 50,000 alpacas in the southern Puno region.

The fact that these deaths have occurred in the summer months do make it very unusual, but alpacas are not quite as tough as people often think.

They are not particularly good at foraging in cold or snowy weather. They also do not carry much body fat and their coats contain no water-resistant lanolin.

In recent days, there have been reports of heavy rain in the region. It may be that the animals' coats have been penetrated by water, making them vulnerable to the combination of low temperatures and strong winds.

Alpaca wool is a major export in Peru. More than $150m of fleeces are sent abroad each year.</s>The Office of Water Resources within the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs has lifted the drought emergency declaration across Northern Alabama in favor of a drought advisory. This decision comes after the Alabama Drought Monitoring & Impact Group discussed Alabama’s drought situation Tuesday, January 10th. The group meets every two weeks during severe drought conditions to discuss appropriate actions.

Back in November, most of Alabama was declared to be in a drought emergency. This is the first time since then that improvements in the drought have been marked in their declaration. The group considers many factors other than rainfall such as streamflow, reservoir levels, soil moisture, and other measurements. Streamflow has improved notably thanks to recent rainfall and reservoir and well levels are starting to rebound too.

Now that the impacts of rainfall are starting to be seen, the group felt it appropriate to adjust the declarations across the state. A drought advisory is the lowest level declaration and includes all of Northern Alabama except Cullman Cherokee, and Etowah County. Those three counties remain under a drought warning, which is only one step down from the drought emergency previously declared.

As of the most recent Drought Monitor, extreme drought remains in Eastern Alabama where up to 9 inches of rainfall would still be needed to end the drought. No part of Alabama is in the highest level of drought, or ‘Exceptional’ drought, at this time.</s>More than forty percent of California is no longer in a drought according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor. The bad news is that Kern County remains one of the last places still listed in extreme drought with the southwest portion in the highest level of exceptional drought. The extreme conditions cover the southern San Joaquin Valley.</s>The Office of Water Resources within the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs has lifted the drought emergency declaration across Northern Alabama in favor of a drought advisory. This decision comes after the Alabama Drought Monitoring & Impact Group discussed Alabama's drought situation Tuesday, January 10th.

Start the conversation, or Read more at WHNT-TV Huntsville.</s>SACRAMENTO — (CNN) Thanks to the powerful storms that have drenched Northern California, 42% of the state is no longer in a drought.

That marks a major improvement from a year ago, when only 3% of the state was drought-free, according to data from the US Drought Monitor.

The storms have dumped more than 7 inches of rain since Monday and the National Weather Service says 6-12 feet of snow has fallen in the Sierra Nevada, where the snowpack is critical to California’s water supply.

While Northern California is soaked, it’s still bone dry down south.

Most of Southern California and several central areas of the state remain in extreme and exceptional drought, according to data released by the US Drought Monitor on Thursday. More than 26 million people are in drought-stricken areas.

The long-term impact of the drought has been “more severe and widespread in southern sections,” noted the report. Reservoirs and wells are still below normal levels there.

‘The worst drought that California has ever seen’

California has grappled with the drought for the last five years.

Parched conditions fueled numerous, deadly wildfires across the state. More than 102 million drought-stricken trees in the state have dried up and died since 2010, the USDA estimated.

Many homes have run out of running water because of dried up wells. It also has devastated farms, forcing layoffs of thousands of farm workers because of reduced water allocations.

In 2014, California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency and warned that the state was facing “perhaps the worst drought that California has ever seen since records (began) about 100 years ago.”

The next year, he imposed the first ever mandatory water restrictions on residents, businesses and farms. He also ordered cities and towns to reduce usage by 25% in 2015.

Residents dealt with their new reality of crisp, yellow lawns and dusty, unwashed cars.

While the recent storms in Northern California have triggered flooding, mudslides and forced dozens of people from their homes, it has also brought relief.

The storms have replenished the major reservoirs and the Sierra Nevada snowpack. The National Weather Service says Lake Tahoe’s volume has grown by about 33.6 billion gallons since the beginning of the year.

“Bye bye Drought. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” tweeted the National Weather Service in Reno, Nevada.

The drought has also affected areas beyond California, extending to other Western states including parts of Nevada and Oregon.</s>A conveyor belt of strong Pacific storms brought enough rain and snow to California early this winter to knock out drought conditions in the northern part of the state, according to this week's U.S. Drought Monitor report.

More than 40 percent of California is out of the drought after several rounds of storms during the wet season, which began Oct. 1, according to the weekly report. The streams of moisture have caused some flooding, but eliminated drought conditions in the northern half of California.

"We're making progress," said NBC4 Southern California forecaster Crystal Egger. "We still have a ways to go. It's not going to happen in just one season."

This time last year, 97 percent of the state was in drought.

Parts of California remain in a fifth consecutive year of drought conditions, but the report cited major improvements for the state's water reservoirs and the critical snowpack in the Sierra Nevada range. That snowpack melts in the spring, then flows into the state's water reservoirs, most of which were above the normal Jan. 10 historic level and rising, and provides Californians with much of their year-round water supply.

The snowpack level also is well above normal for Jan. 10, according to the Drought Monitor.

The most severe drought conditions -- identified as exceptional drought -- persist in a small part of southwestern California. That leaves about 2 percent of the state under the most severe drought category, marking a significant improvement from this time last year when 42 percent was under exceptional drought.

California will remain in a drought emergency until Gov. Jerry Brown approves changes to the order he issued in January 2014 to combat consecutive dry years. Brown issued that announcement on a patch of bare grass in the Sierras, which are now buried under snow.

The governor is likely to wait until the end of winter to make a decision.

The Monitor's latest report, compiled by water experts who use soil moisture, stream levels and snowpack to make their estimates, includes data through Tuesday Jan. 10. More rain and snow arrived Wednesday and Thursday.

The storms are expected to move out ahead of the weekend, provided a much-needed break for Northern California residents who have faced flooding and the threat of landslides.</s>BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Storms this week brought the Sierra Nevada its heaviest snow in six years and hit parts of Northern California with the most rain in two decades.

The Associated Press reported Thursday morning that federal monitors announced Thursday that 42 percent of California has emerged from a five-year drought after some of the heaviest rain and snow in decades.

The finding marks a dramatic turnaround from this time last year when 97 percent of California was locked in drought. The U.S. Drought Monitor says half of the state, all in the central and southern regions, remains in severe drought or worse.

I just crunched the numbers to show you that since the drought began (counting the entire years of 2011-2016), as of today we are 10.85” in rain debt here in Bakersfield. So far this month we have received .92” (which is close to how much we usually get for the entire month of January). So this is a very good start, but it is not a drought breaker. This .92” goes into the bucket of 6.47” that we need to collect in 2017 to be average, it doesn’t even start to add to recovery needed from that 10.85” debt.

The storms helped double vital Sierra snowpack in a week. State reservoirs are now fuller than average for the first time in six years. State officials say Gov. Jerry Brown likely will wait until spring to decide whether to lift the state's three-year drought emergency.

Photo courtesy: @KirkwoodMtn - which shows one of their lift operators standing near a ski lift buried in nine feet of snow, which caused the resort to close Wednesday.</s>Tamil Nadu’s move to declare a drought, ironically on the eve of the harvest festival of Pongal, is an important step to address the agrarian distress that is sweeping the State following poor rainfall during the northeast monsoon. Even with relatively better governance structures, desperation among farmers has resulted in a spate of suicides, particularly in the Cauvery delta rice belt that has received little water from Karnataka in recent times. An official declaration of drought brings relief: postponement of loan recovery, waiver of land tax and alternative employment through schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The challenge now is to infuse confidence among farmers that the government is fully behind them. As agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan has pointed out, there is a need to look ahead and institute reforms in drought management for effective distress mitigation. These should be founded on a participatory approach, one that intensively engages the farm community year-round. A monsoon management centre drawing upon the expertise of multiple departments would, for instance, help use scarce resources conservatively during a drought, and maximise their potential in good times. It is also crucial to preserve the health of cattle and other livestock, as they tend to suffer irreparable harm during drought, with cascading effects on their future productivity. The Centre should provide all support to achieve this under the National Disaster Response Fund and the Prime Minister’s crop insurance scheme.

The importance of welfare support for small and marginal farmers cannot be overstated, given the vagaries of the monsoon. More than a decade ago, the National Commission on Farmers pointed out that successive droughts, illness, high expenditure on social obligations and asset loss push farmers to the brink. Yet, not much has changed in the management of drought from the low-budget practices of the colonial era, as the Swaraj Abhiyan case in the Supreme Court last year revealed. No more time can be lost in making the administrative system for agriculture responsive to today’s needs. The Centre has to ensure that the Drought Management Manual is updated to reflect farmers’ concerns, chiefly, giving weightage to the amount of rainfall deficit and declaring a drought without delay. In Tamil Nadu, excessive reliance on water-intensive rice cultivation, and lower priority for hardy millets have raised the risk for many farmers. Active recharging of groundwater and harvesting of surface water are vital to meet the challenges.</s>A report released Thursday by federal agencies indicated that recent rain activity has helped parts of California emerge from a five-year drought.

According to the United States Drought Monitor report, 42 percent of the state is no longer in a drought. That’s up from nearly 32 percent a week ago.

Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that parts of Northern California have received more than a foot of rain over the past week, which has increased snow water content and filled major reservoirs in the area. Shasta Lake, Northern California’s largest reservoir, is now at 82 percent of its capacity. A week ago, it was 74 percent full.

The U.S. Drought Monitor’s weekly analysis, released on Thursday, shows only 2 percent of the state remains in the most extreme category, “exceptional drought,” down from nearly 43 percent a year ago. Video by Teodros Hailye/KQED

As a result of the recent rainfall, most of Northern California is now considered drought-free, said meteorologist David Miskus, the author of the report.

Other parts of the state are still at risk, however. The southern half of California has seen less rainfall over the past week than the north, and water levels in reservoirs and wells remain below normal. Lake Cachuma in Santa Barbara County, for instance, is at just 8 percent capacity.

As a result, the United States Drought Monitor has labeled those areas as facing “extreme” to “exceptional” drought conditions.

“I would not expect the drought to completely go away from Southern California, at least for another couple of winters,” Miskus told the PBS NewsHour. “The North is a completely different story.”

Miskus said Northern California tends to receive more precipitation because of its climatology and location. He said the Pacific storm system track runs northward, which is why places like Southern California receive less rain than Northern California, Oregon and Washington.

Despite some improvements in drought conditions, California Gov. Jerry Brown is not ready to ease or rescind the drought state of emergency declaration he made in 2014.

“We’ve still got a couple of months of the rainy season to go before we assess how drought conditions shake out,” California Natural Resources Agency spokesman Sam Chiu told the NewsHour. “The status of reservoirs, snowpack and groundwater levels at the end of the rainy season will be part of the assessment of the Governor’s statewide drought emergency declaration.”

More rain is expected throughout the state, including in Southern California, next week.</s>The US Drought monitor now says Nevada is 63% drought free, at this time last year 99% of the state was under drought conditions. We all know what’s been happening. The first ten days of January make this the 12th wettest month for Washoe County since 1893. The rain total for the new year is nearly four and a half inches. For an entire year on average, Reno gets under seven and a half inches of rain.
An estimated 180,000 alpacas are dead due to frigid temperatures and drought in Peru.