Wettest start in 30 years to rainy season in Northern California, but don’t forget the drought

Nov 28, 2016 at 5:00pm

DALE KASLER AND RYAN SABALOW, The Sacramento Bee

The National Weather Service said Monday that the rainy season in the northern Sierra Nevada is off to its wettest start in 30 years. Mountain conditions are critically important to monitoring the drought because a major share of the state’s water supply is stored for months as snow.

Citing state data from a string of eight gauges scattered around the northern Sierra, the service said precipitation has come in at about twice the average for this time of year, making for the wettest kickoff to the water year in 30 years. The water year, as defined by climatologists and others, begins Oct. 1.

However, the strong start doesn’t guarantee an end to the drought, or even meaningful relief.

As it is, the rainy beginning is largely the result of one of the wettest Octobers ever, which dumped four times as much rain on the Sacramento region as normal, said weather service forecaster Travis Wilson. Already, there are signs of a slowdown: Despite the wet Thanksgiving weekend, November has been relatively dry, with the Sacramento area getting only about half the normal rainfall.

The two-month wet spell “doesn’t guarantee you anything,” Wilson said.

As if to underscore the forecasters’ caution, the state Department of Water Resources, in the season’s first outlook on water supplies, announced Monday that State Water Project customers can expect to receive 20 percent of their requested deliveries in 2017. The SWP serves some of the biggest water agencies in the state, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

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