The only two similar 19-month periods that were drier than the current one were from July 1975 to January 1977 - the middle of a historic drought - and July 1897 to January 1899. We would need something monumental and probably catastrophic to get out of it.” “If you look at the amount of rain that has fallen over the last 19 months, most places are about half of normal,” said Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services in Half Moon Bay who compiled the data. That makes the past 19 months the third-driest such period in San Francisco in 172 years, when records first began in 1849. Put another way, San Francisco is 20.13 inches behind normal for last winter, and this winter so far, combined. That’s just 46% of the historic average for that 19-month stretch. (Elias Funez/The Union via AP)Įven including rainfall totals from last week’s big atmospheric storm, which soaked Big Sur and the Santa Cruz Mountains more than the Bay Area, San Francisco has received only 17.13 inches of rain during the 19-month period from Jto Jan. Historic and increasingly ominous rainfall shortages continue closer to the coast, due to a dry winter last year, and a still-dry winter so far this year.ĭonner Lake is seen in the snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountain range, Saturday, Jan. “It hasn’t brought us back to average but it has gone a long way in making up the deficit.” “There’s been a significant jump,” said Eric Kurth, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. That should send the statewide Sierra snowpack above 70% of normal when officials from the state Department of Water Resources conduct their monthly manual snow survey Wednesday at Phillips Station near Lake Tahoe. Alpine Meadows ski resort is covered in snow on Jan. On Tuesday, the National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning through Wednesday morning for the Central and Northern Sierra, with chain controls on I-80, and up to 2 more feet of snow is expected to fall by late Wednesday. By Tuesday, like a dazed prize fighter getting up off the mat, the snowpack had climbed to a respectable 68% after last week’s atmospheric river dumped more than 7 feet of new snow across the Tahoe Basin, and up to 9 feet at Mammoth Mountain. 24, the Sierra Nevada snowpack, a vast frozen reservoir of water, was at 38% its historic average. But the Bay Area and most cities across Northern California remain stuck in one of the worst two-year rainfall deficits seen since the 1849 Gold Rush, increasing the risk of water restrictions and dry wildfire conditions locally next summer. California’s water picture is heading in two different directions.Ī major storm last week and a more modest system Tuesday continued to boost the Sierra Nevada snowpack, the source of one-third of the state’s water supply, in promising ways.
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