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Thursday, December 14, 2017

It Never Rains in California

by Calculated Risk on 12/14/2017 03:29:00 PM

After enduring a five year drought, California finally had a decent rainy season last year. But this season is off to a very slow start.

Here are a few resources to track the rain and snow.

These tables show the snowpack in the North, Central and South Sierra. Currently the snowpack is about 29% of normal for this date in the North, 41% of normal in the Central Sierra, and 38% of normal in the Southern Sierra.  A slow start to the season.

And here are some plots comparing the current and previous years to the average, a very dry year ('14-'15) and a wet year ('82-'83). This winter is tracking the drought years.

And for Los Angeles, here is a historical table of annual rainfall. After one year of significantly above average rainfall, this year is below normal (and there is no rain in sight - just smoke from the fires).

It is very early in the season, but this is a weak start.