Meteorologist Tom Dang offered a little bad news, along with a note of optimism, after looking at the long term forecasts for Lake County.
On the plus side, said Dang, who works with the National Weather Service in Sacramento, computur models suggest that upcoming systems may not pack much of a punch. Friday’s steady rain tapered off overnight, leading to a little reprieve.
“We have another weather system coming through on Sunday, but it’s not particularly wet,” he observed.
A second system is on schedule to arrive mid-week, although Dang believes it might veer north, sparing Lake County from another dousing.
So does that mean the winter’s historic rains are finally winding down?
“The short answer is ‘not anytime soon,’” Dang said.
His response might seem like a dose of bad news. Long range forecasts from Accuweather anticipate occasional spats of wet weather throughout the month of April. Historically the winter rains can linger into May.
Clear Lake peaked in February at 10.63 on the Rumsey Gauge. While the lake has topped out in February 25 times since 1874, it continued its rise into either March or April on 91 occasions.
There have been nine times when the high point was recorded in May.
On Friday afternoon the lake had returned to 7.64, after falling toward 7.60.
Yet pinning down weather more than 14 days out with any accuracy is difficult. And the National Weather Service models show the next two weeks trending drier.
And that is welcome news after the repeated poundings of January and February.
The season began with above average rainfall in October. December offered a two significant showers and also beat averages.
January followed. More than half of the month — 16 days — featured wet weather. On seven occasions the storms broke the one-inch mark, including 3.15 inch pummeling on Jan. 8. Two days later the area received another 2.91 inches, as measured by Accuweather’s Lakeport station.
In all, the storms of January dumped enough water on the county to top the historic average by 9 inches.
February offered more of the same — another 16 days of measurable precipitation, with six dumping more than an inch on the county. It was enough to beat averages by 6 inches, and more in some places.
The story was much the same across Northern California. A bridge on Highway 1 at Big Sur was undermined. The Oroville Dam spillway collapsed, forcing mass evacuations. In the Sierras accumulation is inching closer to a record. And yesterday Sacramento reached 30 inches of rain for the first time since the 1997-98 season.
Also for the first time since 1998, Clear Lake spilled over the 10 foot mark, as measured on the Rumsey Gauge.
“It’s certainly been wet,” Dang said, struggling to compare the extraordinary year to others.
This year’s flooding represents only the 19th time over the last 144 years that Clear Lake reached 10.0 Rumsey. Six of these occasions came in the 1800s. In fact, the lake reached its highest recorded point in 1890, when it climbed to 13.66 on the Rumsey Gauge.
According to Dang, much of the winter was spent under a weak La Nina system, which followed last year’s El Nino. He reported that patterns had now slipped back to neutral.
Despite talk of La Nina years bringing drought, with El Nino drenched in rain, Drang dismissed the Pacific systems and their affect on the state.
“The reality is that for most of California there’s not really a good connection between El Nino and La Nina and rain,” he said.
