OUR NORTH BAY WATER YEAR IN CHARTS – MORE STORMS LIKELY
After a dry January the North Bay has recovered nicely and is running well above average in water year rainfall (since October).
For the state as a whole, the water supply also looks good. Although Southern California continues to be unusually dry, recent storms have added to the snowpack across the southern half of the Sierra Nevada range.
Here is what the water year looks like, so far, in charts.
The North Bay is running ahead of average in both precipitation, and the percent of normal for the date.
Meanwhile, Northern California as a whole is running at or above average, while Southern California remains very dry for the water year.
Thankfully, the Northern Sierra index of reporting stations, essentially the region where much of the state’s reservoir supply comes from, is running around average or better this year. (blue line in the center of chart)
As far as snowpack, the state is doing fairly well. As a whole the Sierra is running at 93% of average for the date. Recent March storms have helped a lot after a dry January.
And, finally, the state’s reservoirs are in good shape this year. This is largely a carryover from the wet winter the state experienced in 2023-2024.
Despite recent releases to make room for storm flow, Lake Sonoma is currently running ahead of average storage for the date.
THE FORECAST
Looking ahead, although a weak storm should give us a few showers Wednesday, the weather looks mostly sunny and dry into early next week. But, after that, the models are hinting at a big time return to wet weather, with potentially large storms starting around the 26th and continuing into the first few days of April.
Here’s the current European model output for Wednesday the 26th.
And the European’s forecast for additional rain by April 2nd.
This is a very long range outlook and will change of course, but the notion of a wet end to the month is being supported by the ensemble models (averaging lots of different possibilities).
They seem to agree that the last few days of March and first few days of April may be quite wet.
We’ll watch the trends, so check back for updates.
Author: newsofthenorthbay
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