How Will Rainstorm Affect California Precipitation Totals?

How Will Rainstorm Affect California Precipitation Totals?

A couple of wet storms are now approaching the California coast and are expected to provide the first heavy rainfall of the season to southern portions of the state. Here is an update of where precipitation totals so far this water season (July 1-June 30) stand.

Below are two charts showing the seasonal (July 1-to date) precipitation for 11 major cities in California arranged from north (Eureka) to south (San Diego). The first table is where the situation stood as of January 15th and the second table as of yesterday, February 26th. As one can see the big rainstorm of February 7-9 improved the situation for the northern two-thirds of California but did not affect the southern third of the state where the drought conditions have markedly worsened since January. In fact, the Downtown Los Angeles site (which is the site used in the tables) has not seen a calendar day rainfall of 1” or greater since October 5, 2011. Almost two and a half years ago. So we can see how important this coming storm will be for the southern portion of California.

I’ll post an update of these figures next Monday after the storm(s) have cleared the area.



Christopher C. Burt
Weather Historian