Marin drought picture improves — except on Tiburon Peninsula

Most of Marin was downgraded from “exceptional” to “extreme” drought conditions after a storm dumped nearly 18 inches of rain on the county in a matter of days last week, but much of the Tiburon Peninsula remains in the 3.4 percent still ranked in the highest category of concern.

The U.S. Drought Monitor, a partnership of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Agriculture and National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, is updated Thursdays and ranks areas nationwide on a six-intensity scale. Some 99 percent of California is in some form of drought, and all of Marin is in an extreme drought, or year-round fire season and extremely low reservoirs with inadequate water for agriculture, wildlife and urban needs.

But coastal slivers of western and southern Marin remain ranked in exceptional drought, where fields become fallow, wetlands dry up and survival of native plants and animals is low.

Joining those highest-intensity areas is a slice of bayside eastern Marin that includes parts of Novato and San Rafael, southeastern Tiburon and all of Belvedere. Strawberry and northern Tiburon, from Highway 101 to Paradise Cay, were among the downgraded areas.

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