Rain Record: Shattered
The rainy winter and spring here in California I've remarked on several times already in this blog is now one for the record books. With rainfall from last night the "Northern Sierra eight-station index", an important tracking index that measures water content in the mountain snowpack, is now at 89.7 inches, beating the previous wettest mark of 88.5 inches in the 1982-83 season, the San Jose Mercury News reported today.
And the season's not done. Already we had a brief rain shower today in the Bay Area that will be headed to the Sierra tonight/tomorrow, and more rain is in the forecast for this weekend. By the time the rainy season is done we'll have creamed the high since this index starting being recorded 95 years ago.
The index is expressed as "2016-17" because Carlifornia rainfall seasons are tracked Oct 1 - Sep 30. That's because most of our rain falls in the winter months, generally November through March. Rain after that is uncommon, particularly through the summer months. I've writte about this Mediterranean weather pattern before, and you can see in the chart I've included here how most years rain tapers off by about this time of year.
While being on track to break the previous rainfall record by several inches may not seem like a lot- it's only inches, after all- appreciate that our current 89.7 inches is 205% of the average season-to-date rainfall. That's a tremendous difference from the average and a much needed difference from the past several years of drought conditions. In fact, last Friday Governor Jerry Brown declared the drought emergency over in all but a handful of counties in the San Joaquin Valley. Example news coverage: LA Times article, April 7.
I'm glad to see this multiyear drought come largely to an end. There are still some problems we have to deal with, though, beyond just the few parts of the state that are stil in drought. The deluge of rains have challenged our infrastructure. Two name just two problems, there were the spillway failures at the massive Lake Oroville dam in northern california and a bridge knocked out along Highway 1 on the central coast. Plus, more problems may appear in the future as summer temperatures melt the record snowpack in the high mountains and send all that water downhill to our rivers and dams. Be happy, but stay concerned.
And the season's not done. Already we had a brief rain shower today in the Bay Area that will be headed to the Sierra tonight/tomorrow, and more rain is in the forecast for this weekend. By the time the rainy season is done we'll have creamed the high since this index starting being recorded 95 years ago.
The index is expressed as "2016-17" because Carlifornia rainfall seasons are tracked Oct 1 - Sep 30. That's because most of our rain falls in the winter months, generally November through March. Rain after that is uncommon, particularly through the summer months. I've writte about this Mediterranean weather pattern before, and you can see in the chart I've included here how most years rain tapers off by about this time of year.
While being on track to break the previous rainfall record by several inches may not seem like a lot- it's only inches, after all- appreciate that our current 89.7 inches is 205% of the average season-to-date rainfall. That's a tremendous difference from the average and a much needed difference from the past several years of drought conditions. In fact, last Friday Governor Jerry Brown declared the drought emergency over in all but a handful of counties in the San Joaquin Valley. Example news coverage: LA Times article, April 7.
I'm glad to see this multiyear drought come largely to an end. There are still some problems we have to deal with, though, beyond just the few parts of the state that are stil in drought. The deluge of rains have challenged our infrastructure. Two name just two problems, there were the spillway failures at the massive Lake Oroville dam in northern california and a bridge knocked out along Highway 1 on the central coast. Plus, more problems may appear in the future as summer temperatures melt the record snowpack in the high mountains and send all that water downhill to our rivers and dams. Be happy, but stay concerned.