If you live in California, you probably have been pining for this moment for a long time: RAIN!
It’s been so ridiculously dry over the past 1+ years that it’s hard to even quantify.
Reading a USA Today article I came across this striking quote from Johnnie Powell, a Sacramento NWS meteorologist, “Ten storms in a row wouldn’t help. We’re at historical dry levels… It’s the longest dry period we’ve had since records were first kept in 1849.”
If you expanded the time-frame to be a bit longer, say 48 or so hours, the totals become more impressive.
Downtown San Francisco is reporting 0.28″ of rainfall, which combines with a previous 0.06″ of rainfall to give them 0.34″ on the year. 4.48″ below average. If you expand your time-frame to start in July, you get even more impressive deficits. Downtown San Fran is 11.51″ below average since then. The airport is 9.70″ below average during the same span of time.
What about other spots around the West?
The latest drought monitor came out Jan. 28th, and depicts a dire scenario for California.
Between the Bay Area and Southern California you have a wide swath of exceptional drought conditions. That is over 8% of the state, where last year that percentage was zero. That is a big part of why Governor Brown declared a state of emergency for California.
In fact, looking up “California Drought Emergency” in Google launches you into a whole realm of drought related emergencies you may not be aware of. Communities are struggling to find drinking water.
One such article was written by the Christian Science Monitor, discussing 17 communities that are in dire water situations. They are on track to run out of water in 100 days. You can read more by clicking here. One key section reads as such,
“The water emergency highlighted by the ticking clock on these 17 rural communities is “simultaneously painfully local and thoroughly global,” says David Cassuto, a professor at Pace Law School.
“Each affected city will have to adapt its conservation measures to its particular geography. Some towns can drill extra wells, some can impose draconian conservation measures, and some have no easy answers at all and will have to seek emergency help from elsewhere,” he says via e-mail.
This will definitely be something worth tracking over the next couple of months.
Stay tuned to WeatherNation, for hopefully MORE wet forecasts for California and other drought-stricken locales.
WeatherNation Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer @ashafferWNTV
This is terrible. Is Calif. going back to being a desert? I pray they get rain. Calif. is either flooding with landslides or drying up, but it has never been this extreme.
I am trying to adjust from twc to weathernation and I will have to say I miss the local on the 8’s and being able to put in my zipcode or any other and get the weather. any chance of weathernation getting this technology??