Newsweek spoke with experts about the Golden State's drought levels as well as current and future weather conditions ... On Thursday morning, the U.S. Drought Monitor issued its weekly updated map ...

as shown in the yellow shading on the map below. An enormous swath of real estate in the western half of the United States will see persisting drought, including Los Angeles, Las Vegas ...

The Drought Monitor map indicated that 14.7% of California was ... California allowed for some improvements in areas where the current water year indicators improved and eased some of the drought ...

Even though current numbers reflect drought conditions, Clifford Mass, a University of Washington professor of atmospheric and climate sciences, said it’s too early to tell if levels will stick ...