The light brown color, which covers the largest area, has value 70 to 90, thus, these regions have gotten 10-30% less precipitation than average in the past three years relative to the 30-year average. Now, on the right panel, we find patches of brown, and very little green.īut pay attention to the scale. Look, there is a lot of green, even deep green, on the left panel, which means the state got lots more rain than usual in the past month. I'm a bit unhappy with the headline: 'Recent rains haven't erased California's long-term drought'.Īt the surface, the conclusion seems sensible. The NYT graphic is technically well executed. The key to making this chart work is a common color scheme across the two panels.Īlso, the placement of major cities provides anchor points for our eyes to move back and forth between the two panels. Green is much wetter than average while brown is much drier than average. Precipitation is measured in relative terms, so what is plotted is the relative ratio of precipitation in the reference period, with 100 being the 30-year average. The two panels show, respectively, the short-term view (past month) and the longer-term view (3 years). It's a small multiples display, showing the spatial distribution of the precipitation amounts in California. Here's a recent NYT graphic showing California's water situation at different time scales (link to article).

3 times chart