Historic drought puts the brakes on earthflows in northern California

California’s ongoing, unprecedented drought is having profound impacts on the state’s resources. Here we assess its impact on 98 deep-seated, slow-moving landslides in northern California. We used aerial photograph analysis, satellite interferometry, and satellite pixel tracking to measure earthflow velocities spanning 1944 -2015 and compared these trends with the Palmer Drought Severity Index, a proxy for soil moisture and pore pressure that governs landslide motion. We find that earthflow velocities reached a historical low in the 2012 - 2015 drought, but that their deceleration began at the turn of the century in response to a longer-term moisture deficit. Our analysis implies depth-dependent sensitivity of earthflows to climate forcing, with thicker earthflows reflecting longer-term climate trends and thinner earthflows exhibiting less systematic velocity variations. These findings have implications for mechanical-hydrologic interactions that link landslide movement with climate change as well as sediment delivery in the region.