Blue Dot

Blue Dot: California's dry winter: state of the drought

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Lake Oroville 2021.
Ethan Swope

After a promising start to the winter with an autumn atmospheric river event and a series of storms in December, California residents started to breathe a sigh of relief, but not so fast: "dry January" wasn't just about abstaining from alcohol, it was a plunge back into drought conditions.

First, Dave visits with former Chico/Redding market TV meteorologist Kris Kuyper about his take on the winter's on again off again weather, then visits with Jay Lund, co-Director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Science.

Finally, Blue Dot's host visits with two fellow journalists, Rachel Becker and Erica Yee from CalMatters, about their extensive reporting on the drought.

Blue DotWeatherChico, CAScience
Dave Schlom
Dave Schlom is the longtime host and creator of Blue Dot. From surfing to Voyager in interstellar space, rock guitar to orcas in our imperiled oceans, the topics on Blue Dot are as varied as the host’s interests and connections -- which are pretty limitless! An internationally respected space history journalist, Dave is also deeply fascinated by all aspects of the grand workings of nature’s awesome machinery on scales ranging from galactic to subatomic. And topics take in all aspects of the arts and sciences.
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Matt Fidler
Matt Fidler is a producer and sound designer with over 15 years’ experience producing nationally distributed public radio programs. He has worked for shows such as Freakonomics Radio, Selected Shorts, Studio 360, The New Yorker Radio Hour and The Takeaway. In 2017, Matt launched the language podcast Very Bad Words, hitting the #28 spot in the iTunes podcast charts.
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