That’s the question we’ve been asking as we gauge our tank levels (full-up!) and we tally the rain received already this year (copious!).

On the other hand, federal climate experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last week that the La Niña in the equatorial Pacific is strengthening, which likely promises that drought conditions will prevail in California through February, historically our area’s wettest months.

In essence, they concluded, the opportunity for drought recovery is lost.

With this sort of ominous uncertainty, we feel we must keep our water shortage emergency in effect for at least the next 90 days. By late February or so, we’ll be better able to evaluate our water availability prospects for next year’s dry season and make a better informed decision on how to proceed.

In the meantime, it is important that we underscore just how grateful we all are here, Directors and staff alike, for your supportive response to conserving water during these past months. You’ve cut overall usage by almost 45 percent -- at a time when other water agencies are struggling to achieve even 15 and 20 percent reductions!

So many of you have elected to participate in our Flume program that, according to Flume, we have the highest percentage of Flume-connected customers of any water system in the entire country.

There was record-setting participation in Chipper Days this year, and our Fire Department is heartened by the efforts of so many of you to create defensible space and remove hazardous trees.

It all adds up to this: We know we can count on our residents to face up to the challenges of both drought and wildfire threat and to pull together as a community to get through whatever is thrown at us. Thank you!

P.S. You may have noticed that the tank levels sign in the village center seems to be stuck at around 94 percent. That’s because anything above 93 or 94 percent shows that we are managing to keep the tanks essentially full. If we get lucky and our area experiences a normal winter rainfall pattern over the next two to three months, the sign will likely stay at around 94%. But, if the weather turns dry and the percentage on the sign begins to drop, that will be the signal that things are not looking good for next year. You can track this data daily in more detail on our website (invernesspud.org). On our homepage, click on the header “Today’s Water System Tank Levels.“