(Wines&Vines) - As federal officials note in the most recent report on drought conditions in the United States: “A strange thing happened on the path to California’s historic drought: It rained.”

A tropical system from the Pacific drew light showers and high humidity across much of California in early August. The rain and overcast conditions provided some irrigation relief and slowed the evaporation of water from storage ponds. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, however, noted the rain did not provide any substantial relief because only a few areas received heavy showers, and most of that fell outside of the state’s key watersheds.

In Southern California’s San Bernardino County, intense rainfall Aug. 3 led to the surreal situation of some people suffering from flood damage during one of the worst droughts in California’s history. The water left as quickly as it arrived, and almost none of it could percolate into the area’s soil to provide any significant drought relief.

The USDA reports nearly 60% of California is now suffering an “exceptional drought,” with the remaining parts of the state experiencing “severe” to “extreme” levels of drought.

 A report from the University of California, Davis, Center for Watershed Sciences found the current drought is responsible for the greatest loss of water for agriculture on record, with surface water reduced by one-third. That loss has been offset by groundwater pumping through­out the state but mainly in the Central Valley. The report found the total economic impact to California so far has been $2.2 billion, and nearly 430,000 acres (or 5%) of the state’s irrigated cropland is going out of production in the Central Valley, Central Coast and Southern California.