Due to the immense amount of rain in the past few weeks, the historic six-year drought in northern California has come to an end.

Sporadic rain in October started to improve the drought situation. Approximately 40 percent of California was in exceptional drought danger last year, according to the monitor; however, as of Jan. 10, around two percent is still in that category.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, all regions in northern California north of Interstate 80 are now completely free from drought. This marks the the first time that this announcement has been made since December 2011.

Gov. Jerry Brown and the state water board will be expected to talk about lifting the state of emergency for the drought originally introduced in January 2014. According to California’s Department of Water Resources, original state of emergency required a 25 percent reduction in water use statewide but was slightly alleviated last year.

Atmospheric rivers, regions in the atmosphere that transport water vapor, directed moisture to dry regions of California, causing multiple days of heavy rain and snow. Prolific snow this winter in the Sierra Mountain regions also contributed immensely to alleviating the drought.

The benefits of the rain also extended to filling lakes and reservoirs. Water levels of Lake Oroville, California’s second largest reservoir, were raised a total of 100 feet within the last month, according to the Weather Channel.

“The thing that’s most worrisome [for climate change] is fresh water. Food is also worrisome, but in theory, food shortages can be dealt with. There’s all sorts of models that show with ample land and existing technologies and so forth that we could produce a lot more food,” said Dr. John Casterline, director of the Ohio State University Institute for Population Research. “Fresh water is the real challenge because humans need water, and there’s a limited supply of it, and there are a lot of places that are already pressed to the limit in providing enough fresh water.”

Despite the positive benefits of the recent rain, it has also caused numerous floods and rockslides across California, effects that were intensified due to climate change caused by harmful human activity.

“It’s pretty clear that humans are affecting global climate,” said Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory climate researcher Benjamin Santer. “Wherever we look, we see signals of unusual change not only in these broad-brush changes in average climate but also in the intensity of droughts [and] of flooding.”

According to Business Insider, despite the recent revival of numerous lakes and reservoirs, aquifers, California’s groundwater, which accumulates below the surface of the earth in deposits, is still relatively deprived. Since the beginning of the drought, many deposits have been used up for irrigation, agriculture and industrial purposes, and only a small portion have been restored. However, with expected ongoing rain in the future, the aquifers are expected to be constantly replenished, bringing California to a state without permanent water shortages.