[reminder]
Back-to-back wet years in Los Angeles set a rainfall record
The latest back-to-back water years have become the wettest on record for Los Angeles since the late 1800s, with more than 52 inches falling since October 2022. And officials say more is on the way.
By Grace Toohey, Hayley Smith
May 10, 2024 06:35 PM
After a comparatively dry fall in Southern California, there was a point last December when it seemed like the fears of a strong, wet El Niño winter may have been overblown.
So much for that.
In a matter of weeks, a succession of powerful storms flipped the script, dumping a stream of record-setting, intense rainfall across California, much of it on the state’s southwestern region.
That wet pattern has continued as winter has given way to spring, with this past weekend’s storm dumping up to 4 inches of rain in some areas — pushing Los Angeles to a new two-year rain total not seen since the late 1800s and forestalling any hope for a quick end to the rainy season.
As of Monday morning, downtown Los Angeles had received 52.46 inches of rain in the latest two water years, the second-highest amount in recorded history. The only other two-year October-through-September period — the period for the so-called water year — that saw more rain was from 1888 through 1890, according to the National Weather Service.
“When you consider the records since 1877 in downtown L.A. … the second [largest total] is hugely significant,” said Joe Sirard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. “We’re obviously way, way, way above normal for two years in a row now. For a dry climate like the Los Angeles area, it’s huge.”
And there’s probably more on the way. A low-pressure system is brewing off the California coast, expected to move inland later this week, weather officials said, driving above-average precipitation forecasts for much of the state through April 10.
Nor do forecasters expect that storm to close out the wet season, with the long-range forecast for April favoring slightly-above-average precipitation in Southern California, according to the Climate Prediction Center.
“We don’t think it’s the end of the rainy season yet,” said Anthony Artusa, meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center. He said a wetter pattern should linger through April and maybe into early May, fueled by the last vestiges of an El Niño-Southern Oscillation — the climate pattern in the tropical Pacific that tends to drive wetter weather in California.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-01/another-wet-winter-set-record-water-year-second-in-history