(VOX) - Over the last three years, California has been in the grips of the worst drought in at least 1,200 years. Reservoirs are shriveling. Crops are wilting in the fields. Cattle herds are thinning out.

Then, in December, the rain came: A weather phenomenon known as the "Pineapple Express" brought moisture all the way from Hawaii and dumped massive amounts of precipitation on the state. The San Francisco Bay Area got nearly 9 inches, and there were floods and landslides throughout northern California.

So how much did that help the drought?

Sadly, only a tiny bit. A recent analysis by Tom DiLiberto of NOAA explains that California's drought has receded somewhat, but 98 percent of the state is still in drought — and 32 percent still facing "exceptional" drought. Worse, it could take near-record amounts of rain this year to pull the state out of its drought.

The big problem here is that California is really, really dried out — and it takes a lot more than a few storms to fill the shortfall. Back in December, an analysis from NASA led by Jay Famiglietti estimated that the state needed nearly 11 trillion gallons of water to fill its rain deficit — a process that could take years.

Another way to look at this, as NOAA did, is that the state needs rainfall far, far above the historical average between now and September to even begin to make up the shortfall