A Mesmerizing Look Back At Earth's Strongest Storms Of 2015

In April, drought-stricken California witnessed a snowpack with virtually no snow and set an all-time recorded low in the Sierra Nevada mountains. At just 6 percent of the long-term average for that time of year, the snowpack measure shattered the previous low of 25 percent set in 1977 and again in 2014. Gov. Jerry Brown, pictured above with Frank Gehrke, chief of snow surveys for the California Department of Water Resources, announced that same day that there would be mandatory, statewide water cutbacks for the first time in history.