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- NATION, Page 31American NotesWEATHERCalifornia Streamin'
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- In most places, torrential downpours, tornadoes, flash
- floods and mudslides would be about as welcome as the bubonic
- plague. In drought-parched California, however, such freakish
- weather has been greeted with jubilation. So far, what some
- residents are calling the "Miracle March" has brought three
- weeks of rain and almost doubled the state's normal monthly
- precipitation levels. The watery largesse resulted when a
- high-pressure system moved off the Pacific Coast, unleashing
- the storms that have drenched the state.
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- Predictions of a drought-induced economic disaster are being
- scaled back, and a few communities may loosen up their water
- restrictions. But state officials fear that the latest boon
- from the skies could deflate efforts to overhaul California's
- outmoded water pricing, distribution and conservation systems.
- They warn that rainfall and reservoirs still remain at half
- their normal yearly levels and that the state's five-year
- drought is not yet over.
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