The hills of California have turned green again for the first time in almost nine months following a five day period of heavy rainfall November 29th through December 3rd. The San Francisco Bay Area was especially hard hit with 12.12” of precipitation measured in Fairfax, Marin County and 11.62” in Tilden Park in the hills above Berkeley. However, all of the state saw a good soaking as the table below illustrates:
Table assembled by Jan Null of Golden Gate Weather Services with data from official NWS sources.
As a result of the storm(s) most of California is now running a seasonal precipitation surplus, the first time they’ve seen such since December 2012.
Precipitation for the water season that began July 1st and as of December 7th for selected California cities arranged geographically from north to south.
This map shows the percentage of normal precipitation for the hydrological water year that began on October 1st (vs. the seasonal water year that began July 1st in the table above) as of December 7th. Map from California Department of Water Resources.
At this point, the most significant impact of the rainfall has been to drastically improve soil moisture levels. The reservoir situation has also improved, albeit not so markedly. The state’s largest reservoir, Shasta Reservoir, has grown by 2% in volume and Lake Oroville, the 2nd largest and where most of the state’s drinking and urban use water comes from, saw an increase of 5% in volume as a result of the recent rain. Of course, overall, the reservoirs are still at near record low levels for this time of the year running at about 56% of normal capacity statewide for this time of the year
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