![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerIt's been rainy. ...Okay, it's more than just rainy, it's like a deluge the past week. Like, "Google reports an increase in searches for 'who is noah' and 'whats a cubit'" levels of rain.
I last mentioned weather several days ago, noting that on New Year's Eve we had to avoid flooded roads on our drive back from visiting friends in the afternoon. It turns out San Francisco got near-record rain that day, 5.46 inches. Flooding has been a problem in many places around the Bay Area. We're safe from flooding here because we're not in a) a low-lying area, b) near a creek, or c) near a steep hillside that could give way when totally water logged. Oh, and d) we get way less rain than SF proper or various other cities in the Bay Area.
But today we've already had over an inch in the past 24 hours, with more expected. And not just more expected today but nearly every day in the 10 day forecast:
Yikes!
On the one hand, sitting inside— and wondering how bad the roads will be when we go out— through days of rain is no fun. On the other hand, as I say almost every time I give the good/bad news on rain, we need the precipitation. California's in a multi-year drought. A few weeks of heavy rain will not fix how low our reservoirs and groundwater supplies have gotten. They absolutely help, but it'll take this plus a lot more to end the drought.
Numbers-wise, the rain so far puts us well ahead of our season-to-date average. We're at close to double what we usually get by this point. (Rainfall seasons are measured Jul 1 - Jun 30.)
We are not yet at normal rainfall for the full season. I mention that because there's a chance the rain dries up after the next 10 days or so. Something like that happened a year ago, when it rained a fair bit in December then dried up in January (2022), extending our drought for another year. By February we had 80-degree-plus weather. Patterns like that have happened in other years, too. So let's hope we get more rain in the next 10 days and for the following month or two. We need it!
And I'm content to trade off several weeks of dreariness right now for not having drought, water rationing, crop failures, and hydroelectric dam failures this summer.
I last mentioned weather several days ago, noting that on New Year's Eve we had to avoid flooded roads on our drive back from visiting friends in the afternoon. It turns out San Francisco got near-record rain that day, 5.46 inches. Flooding has been a problem in many places around the Bay Area. We're safe from flooding here because we're not in a) a low-lying area, b) near a creek, or c) near a steep hillside that could give way when totally water logged. Oh, and d) we get way less rain than SF proper or various other cities in the Bay Area.
But today we've already had over an inch in the past 24 hours, with more expected. And not just more expected today but nearly every day in the 10 day forecast:
Yikes!
On the one hand, sitting inside— and wondering how bad the roads will be when we go out— through days of rain is no fun. On the other hand, as I say almost every time I give the good/bad news on rain, we need the precipitation. California's in a multi-year drought. A few weeks of heavy rain will not fix how low our reservoirs and groundwater supplies have gotten. They absolutely help, but it'll take this plus a lot more to end the drought.
Numbers-wise, the rain so far puts us well ahead of our season-to-date average. We're at close to double what we usually get by this point. (Rainfall seasons are measured Jul 1 - Jun 30.)
We are not yet at normal rainfall for the full season. I mention that because there's a chance the rain dries up after the next 10 days or so. Something like that happened a year ago, when it rained a fair bit in December then dried up in January (2022), extending our drought for another year. By February we had 80-degree-plus weather. Patterns like that have happened in other years, too. So let's hope we get more rain in the next 10 days and for the following month or two. We need it!
And I'm content to trade off several weeks of dreariness right now for not having drought, water rationing, crop failures, and hydroelectric dam failures this summer.
