San Jose records wettest December in nearly 60 years with Monday rain

[KamaAina]

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_27139520/bay-area-gets-another-soaking-from-latest-storm

There's no way of predicting if Mother Nature will continue to shower the Bay Area when we turn the calendar to 2015, but this month is shaping up to be one of the wettest Decembers in decades -- at least in some parts of the region.

On Monday, San Jose received 0.59 inches of rain, making it the city's rainiest December in almost 60 years. And even more rain is forecast through Friday.

So far this month, San Jose has received 6.62 inches of rain, the most in December since 1955, when 9.26 inches of rain was recorded. It's also the fifth-wettest December in San Jose since rainfall records began in 1874, according to Jan Null of Golden Gate Weather Services....

San Jose and San Francisco are the only two Bay Area cities with rainfall records going back long enough for a good historical comparison, Null said. Oakland is next, but he said there have been problems with the totals for the city, and the recording station moved from the airport to the museum.

And it's only the 16th!

[Fred Sanders]

1. Worst drought on record is over, it is exceptionally excellent news.

Oh, what a relief:

[NYC_SKP]

3. No, the drought is not over, good grief. It's a long way from over if, in fact, it ever ends.

(Puts on his pattern-recognition helmet)

First, droughts are neither declare to have begun nor to have ended based on anything less than several YEARS worth of data.

Second, these recent storms represent scarcely 10% of what we need to see by April to hit our average.

It's misleading to show the drought map and the precipitation maps together, then do not reflect the same data.

You and your graphs and charts. Don't make me go find a lemon chart again!

Happy Holidaze!

[Fred Sanders]

4. One must not sit on their past and ancient laurels, real or imagined, and must keep on learning.

Not become fixed in ones ways when evidence contradicts the entrenched way.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/will-the-barrage-of-storms-end/38770784

(Sorry, more of those hated graphs and charts, fair warning if you click)

[NYC_SKP]

5. It's a deep hole you dig when you make a claim that can't be backed up.

And it's pretty sad for you when your very own link, presumably included to make some point, takes the visitor eventually to articles that refute your point and successfully make MY point.

Good golly Fred.

Yes, It’s Raining in California. No, the Drought Is Not Over

Friday, 12 December 2014 16:22

Just look at the Texas drought — California could be waiting years to recover. California drought pineapple express precipitation

Parts of California got more than five inches of rain over the last 24 hours, as a stream of moist, tropical air soaks the desperately dry state. Many more such storms will be needed to break the state’s three-year drought. Click image to enlarge.
By Brett Walton
Circle of Blue

Instruments at San Francisco International Airport recorded more rain over the first six days of December than in the entire 365 days of 2013, the driest year on record in California.

Just 8.58 centimeters (3.38 inches) filled the airport rain gauge in 2013, compared to 9.65 centimeters (3.80 inches) already this month. Weather forecasters expect more rain to come — up to 12.7 centimeters (five inches) in parts of the Bay Area this week — as a stream of moist, tropical air soaks a state that is desperate for water. Even the mountains will benefit from the early-season storm, with parts of the northern Sierra Nevada expecting nearly a meter (three feet) of snow.
“Even if we get average precipitation, we’ll still be a year behind.” –Michael Dettinger, hydrologist, U.S. Geological Survey

Yes, it is raining and snowing in California. But a few weeks of wet weather will not erase the steep moisture deficits that have been accumulating since 2012, according to hydrology experts. Rather, several consecutive years — not weeks — of above-average precipitation will be necessary to rebalance the state’s water resources.

In other words, California has a deep hole to climb out of.

http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2014/world/yes-raining-california-drought/

Climb outta that hole!

[Fred Sanders]

6. One day observed rainfall graph? NOW I understand your fear of charts and graphs.

Some folks only see the rain gauge half empty, clearly it is half full.

[NYC_SKP]

7. Claims that "the drought is over" are not only untrue, they might induce complacency, water waste.

This state is (in some communities) pathetically water-wasteful.

My primary home is on a river and I can tap into that for any landscape needs, but don't because I have only native drought-resistant plants and trees. My domestic water use is minimal, under 40 gallons/day.

The second home I bought earlier this year is at the beach, so all the plants I have are watered naturally and my water use there is even lower because I don't mind taking a swim in the pool over taking a shower ever single day.

Here's a cool article with map of water use per capita by water district, zoom in to find your utility and the per capita daily water use.

http://pacinst.org/new-data-show-residential-per-capita-water-use-across-california/

It's good to be getting rain, but our need to conserve is never going to end, drought or no drought.

[Fred Sanders]

8. Thanks for the info. I am also a big water conserver, wetlands behind my home.

[KamaAina]

10. A flame war over the drought?!

[antiquie]

11. Worse, semantics.

[olddots]

2. I remember 1978 and 1990 something as being wet

Here in LA its a steady drizzle instead of the momentary downfalls .

[antiquie]

9. Needed: 11 Trillion Gallons to Replenish California Drought

The finding was part of a sobering update on the state's drought made possible by space and airborne measurements and presented by NASA scientists Dec. 16 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. Such data are giving scientists an unprecedented ability to identify key features of droughts, data that can be used to inform water management decisions.

GRACE data reveal that, since 2011, the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins decreased in volume by four trillion gallons of water each year (15 cubic kilometers). That's more water than California's 38 million residents use each year for domestic and municipal purposes. About two-thirds of the loss is due to depletion of groundwater beneath California's Central Valley.

In related results, early 2014 data from NASA's Airborne Snow Observatory indicate that snowpack in California's Sierra Nevada range was only half of previous estimates.

The scientists cautioned that while the recent California storms have been helpful in replenishing water resources, they aren't nearly enough to end the multi-year drought.

Story

[Brother Buzz]

12. State's estimated rainfall in last 10 days: 10 trillion gallons

State's estimated rainfall in last 10 days: 10 trillion gallons

Matt Hamilton, Matt Stevens
14 December 2014

How much rainfall has hit California in the last 10 days?

It's hard to calculate. But one weather expert, Ryan Maue, offers this estimate: 10 trillion gallons.

That's enough to fill 15.1 million Olympic-size swimming pools or power Niagara Falls for 154 days.

Using data from the National Weather Service, Maue — a Florida-based meteorologist for WeatherBell Analytics — calculated that an average of 3.5 inches of water fell across the Golden State.

In places such as the Sierra Nevada, where several inches of snow fell, Maue's model liquefied the powder: 1 inch of water for every 10 inches of snow.

Since 1 inch of rain in a square mile works out to 17,378,742 gallons, and California has 163,696 square miles — voila, 10 trillion.

So how accurate is this estimate?


"It's an accurate number, but it's based on how good the precipitation data is," Maue cautioned. "There's no way to know exactly."

Craig Shoemaker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Sacramento station, agreed that it's a "kind of a neat number" but, alas, imperfect.

<more>

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-drought-watch-20141215-story.html