The wettest water years in California tend to occur with El Niño conditions during the winter, while the drier years are often concurrent with La Niña winters. It was an unusually high amount of precipitation to occur during a La Niña winter. Much of this precipitation fell during an extremely wet January and February as numerous atmospheric river events drenched the state. By the end of the water year in September 2016, only 8% was in drought, and exceptional drought was down to 0%. In fact, 83.6% of the state was in drought, with 21% of California in an exceptional drought, the most severe category listed by the United States Drought Monitor. Farther south near the agriculture-heavy San Joaquin Valley, a five-station average showed that the past water year was the second wettest on record after 72.7 inches fell.Īt the start of the previous water year, Californians were still worried about drought. As of October 9, most of the reservoir levels across the state were higher than average, including Lake Shasta which was 73% full-23% higher than normal for this time of year.Īcross the Northern Sierra Mountains, where the highest rainfall amounts were recorded, an eight-station average of precipitation totals during the 2016-2017 water year reached 94.7 inches, the highest on record and over six inches higher than the previous record set in 1982-83. The relatively large amount of precipitation helped to drastically increase the snowpack in the mountains and raise reservoir levels across the state. Precipitation during the 2016-2017 water year exceeded 100 inches across the higher elevations in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, with lesser amounts, 25-50 inches, falling across lower elevations. The amounts are determined through a combination of radar estimates and rainfall gauge reports. Pictured here is the total observed precipitation from the PRISM dataset for October 2016 through September 2017. Due to the high amounts of fall and winter precipitation across California, the “water year” there is defined as October 1–September 30. But a “year” did in fact end on September 30: the water year for California. After all, no ball was dropped, and there were no parties to attend. As an example, December data will typically be posted sometime during the first week of January.Īny questions about this product should be directed to the CNRFC.It may not have seemed like the year was ending when September turned into October recently. Note, monthly data is collected during the first week of the following month and will be posted to this webpage when received from the National Weather Service cooperative observers. In addition the percent of normal will not be calculated. If a station has any missing data, it's WY to Date total will also be missing. NA means that 30 year averages do not exist for this station. Precipitation data is provided for each month of the most recent water year, total precipitation for the water year, the percent of normal for the water year to date, and the percent of the entire water year we have received to date. The water year starts on October 1 of the previous reference year and ends on September 30 of the reference year. The following is data from National Weather Service cooperative observers as of the end of last month. Monthly Precipitation Summary Water Year 2022
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |