Don't do this. (Maggie Osterberg/Flickr Creative Commons)

Jay Famiglietti is the senior water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. According to Famigiletti, California's water crisis may turn ugly pretty quickly.

In an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times, Famigiletti warns that "without a few successive winters of above-average precipitation, we have only enough water in storage to get through the next 12 to 18 months, and that's it."

That's bad news, especially with news from Australia that this year's El Niño might not shape up at all. The fact is, California's water habits are absolutely unsustainable. 

READ MORE: Drought Forces Los Angeles To Rely On Water Reserves

Yesterday, California's State legislature held an emergency vote to authorize $500 dollar fines against wasteful water practices.

The State Water Resources Control Board also just released new data comparing the state's water usage in May 2014 to an average taken between 2011 and 2013. By mid-spring, the state had been preaching water conservation for some time, yet the data highlights that Californians used, as a whole, 1 percent more water this past May than they did in past years. 

Though it might be a little bit unfair to lump all of California into that number; the same report breaks down water usage by district and, as it turns out, most of the state is actually doing a fairly good job of saving water. The exception is the "South Coast" district, which includes Los Angeles, Orange County, Ventura, San Diego and Riverside. Despite the warnings, Southern California thought it okay to increase water usage by 8 percent. 

It's okay, though. It'll just rain really hard this winter and we'll all be fine. Right, guys?

The Bay Area News Group put together a clever infographic visualizing the state's data.

Contact Staff Reporter Matthew Tinoco here. And follow him on Twitter.