Wetter Than Usual Weather Around Burlingame, Hillsborough Helps Downgrade Drought from 'Exceptional' to 'Severe'

By Bay City News Service:

Wetter than usual weather conditions across Northern California has prompted a downgrade of the drought classification from “exceptional” to “severe,” according to the U.S. Drought Monitor and the National Weather Service.

Another bout of rainfall is forecasted for the Bay Area Thursday night and into Friday, according to the National Weather Service.

Rainfall totals are expected to be less than previous storms that have hit the Bay Area over the past week with less than an inch of rain in most areas and an inch or more in the North Bay mountains.

National Weather Service forecaster Bob Benjamin said the region still has a “long way to go” before the rain year is over and comparisons can be made about this rainy season compared to others. “Rain years” begin on July 1 and run through June 30, he said.

Previous: December Rainfall is Way Above Normal

“We’re sort of in the middle of the rain year but we’re off to a good start,” Benjamin said. “We are well above what we need to be to maintain normalcy, which is what we want, but I don’t think we’ll mitigate the drought in one rain year.”

Across all the stations that the San Francisco Bay Area bureau of the National Weather Service monitors, Benjamin said rainfall totals for the year are above average.

Santa Rosa has received 173 percent of normal rainfall totals, San Francisco International Airport has received 230 percent normal rainfall and San Jose is recording its second wettest year on record for the month of December, he said.

Benjamin said the rainfall totals, while they are “certainly going to help the situation,” are not the only factor contributing to a drought. Water retention in snow pack, reservoirs, and groundwater also play a role, Benjamin said.

“We could get a ton of rainfall in two days, but the fact is runoff would probably exceed what we could safely retain,” Benjamin said. “Whereas if you spread it out over a period of time, you might have more absorption.”

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