Things are bad everywhere in California, but the big dry has gotten so severe in the coastal city of Fort Bragg that fancy restaurants are now being ordered to plop their filet mignons on disposable plates and pour wine into plastic cups to avoid washing dishes.

A video posted on Facebook shows the dramatic water level drop at Folsom Lake. 

Where the Colorado River falls from the snow-capped Rocky Mountains into the arid U.S. Southwest, lies Lake Powell. A severe drought in recent years, combined with the tapping of the lake's water at what many consider to be an unsustainable level, has reduced its levels to only about 42 percent of its capacity, according to the U.S. space agency NASA.

More than 5,500 firefighters are struggling to contain the monster blazes that have charred more than 100,000 acres (40,470 hectares), authorities said, destroying hundreds of homes and commercial structures.

The current heat wave is part of a long, terrifying trend.

The state says the company has been illegally tapping critically dry springs.

The trees have lived for millenniums, through lightning strikes and blizzards, through fires, windstorms and severe drought, and no matter how beaten down they are, they endure, creating new crowns where old ones have broken and fallen. But today's environment could challenge this assumption, especially if temperatures continue to rise and snowpacks diminish further.

Members of the Winnemem Wintu tribe in California are bracing for one of their biggest environmental justice struggles yet.

How much water does California’s oil and gas industry actually use? We still don’t know, despite a 2014 law signed by Governor Jerry Brown that went into effect this year requiring companies to report on all water produced, used and disposed of by oilfield operations.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California's ongoing drought will cost the economy in the most populous U.S. state an estimated $2.74 billion in 2015 and lead to the loss of 10,000 seasonal farm jobs, despite

The provincial government declared the agricultural economic losses and hardship resulting from Alberta's extreme weather is a disaster on Friday.

So say two new studies.

A rundown of other Western states in the middle of serious dry spells

How much of California's drought is due to climate change? New research has an answer: up to 27 percent. It also has another important number: climate change has made the odds of severe droughts like this one twice as likely.

Drought explained and the effects.

Three firefighters were killed near Spokane, Washington, fighting one of the more than 100 wildfires burning across the West, authorities said.

Active-duty soldiers being sent to fight fires in Washington; wildfires currently burning in seven states; California fires destroying 1,000 acres an hour

California in the Great Drought is a living diorama of how the future is going to look across much of the United States as climate change sets in. Like hippies and "dude," wine bars and hot tubs, mega-churches and gay rights, what gets big in California goes national soon enough. Now, the large dark bruise spreading across the state on the U.S. Drought Monitor map is a preview of a bone-dry world to come.

Here's what you need to know about adding rainwater catchment to your bucket list.

Unique inscriptions found in a cave in China, combined with chemical analysis of cave formations, show how droughts affected the local population over the past five centuries, and underline the importance of implementing strategies to deal with climate change in the coming years.