Rain, wind, more rain …
Storm series may shatter wettest water year for the Northern Sierra, 88.5 inches set in 1982-83
Not only will the first in a series of incoming storms be packing its usual mix of mischief for Northern California — widespread and heavier precipitation, winds gusting up to 30 mph, snowfall levels dropping from 5,000 to 3,500 feet — but it appears to have its heart set on breaking one big thing:
The all-time wettest water year on record for the Northern Sierra, the most important source of water for the entire state.
On Wednesday afternoon, as the northern half of the state braced for the first of several weather systems approaching over the next 10 days, the socalled “Northern Sierra eightstation index” sat at 88.2 inches. And that’s just a hailstone’s throw away (0.3 of an inch) from the current record for the water year, which runs from October through September.
So it appears the days are numbered for that record of 88.5 inches set back in 1982-83, said meteorologist Craig Shoemaker of the National Weather Service in Sacramento.
“We are expecting to become the wettest water year by Thursday evening if not before,” he said. “We have a system coming through and it depends on where the heaviest precipitation falls Wednesday night and on into Thursday.”
And that’s not all: “We have several more systems in the offing after this current one,” said Shoemaker, looking at computer models. “So we expect to not only break the all-time record this week, but we could end up breaking it by a few inches next week because it looks like we’ve got a fair amount of moisture in these coming systems.”
The weather-watching community is especially pumped to
see a record set for the Northern Sierra index because the eight data-gathering stations from Mt. Shasta down to Blue Canyon in Placer County are witnesses to the bulk of the state’s rainfall. All that water in the mountains finds it way into creeks which feed rivers like the Feather, eventually filling the all-important reservoirs that sit north of Highway 50 like Oroville.
The current level of 87.7 inches represents an amount that is 205 percent of the historic average for this date, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
Several climate stations in the Bay Area have already set all-time wateryear records of their own. San Rafael has received 61.72 inches, topping the 61.45 inches in 1994-95, and Mount Diablo Junction has recorded 50.40 inches, eclipsing the 44.30 inches in 1997-98.
The station in Ben Lomond in the Santa Cruz Mountains has received an eye-popping 92.04 inches, a few inches below the record of 95.65 inches that fell in the El Niño winter of 1982-83.
Wednesday’s weather system was expected to deliver measurable rainfall throughout the Bay Area, including a half-inch to 1 inch in the North Bay; one-quarter to a half-inch in San Francisco, the Peninsula and the East Bay; and one-quarter of an inch or less in the South Bay, according to the weather service. Wind gusts up to 30 mph also were in the forecast.
A few showers could linger into Thursday, but conditions are expected to dry out by the afternoon.
Following a couple of dry days Friday and Saturday, there is an increasing chance of rain Sunday, according to the weather service.
“We potentially have a fairly significant storm coming on Easter Sunday,” Shoemaker said. “Another follows on Monday and we stay unsettled throughout most of the week next week, with another system later on that week all the way to April 20. Our longer-range models for 10 days out are showing active patterns that continue without a break.”