It Never Rains In California Until It Does

The price you pay for living in what used to be paradise – California – besides the misery brought on themselves by voters are the environmental ones they can’t control, and they only hope to mitigate, like fire and water.

Earthquakes? Fuggedadboudit. Those are ‘be prepared and pray you’re in the right place when one hits’ events. 

Also, the mudslides that come after fires have swept through an area, and the rains come in. Thanks to the quirkiness of CA’s topography – also what draws people to the state – those bushes and trees hold the hillsides together in a way not really seen in many other states. When they are gone or compromised – shoot, often even when they’re still there – horrible rivers of mud can come rampaging, swallowing everything in their paths. The earth gets saturated, gives way, and gravity takes over the mass.

They’re terrifying and happen without warning.

But brushfires have always ravaged the countryside, as well as droughts can be planned for, and their effects can be ameliorated by proactive pre-planning.

None of which the state has proven itself capable of.

Now it’s February. While San Diego is currently in one of its driest rainy seasons in 175 years…

A Pacific storm swirling off Canada is expected to stay far to the north, keeping San Diego dry at least until Sunday. The city is in the midst of its driest rainy season since 1850-51.

The National Weather Service says 1.27 inches of precipitation has fallen at San Diego International Airport since the rainy season began on October 1. That’s 4.84 inches below average. The only time it has been drier during that same period was in 2005-06.

…as with anything there, it’s feast or famine. Last year, the area recorded almost nine inches of rain from October to February.

Up the I-5 to Los Angeles, it was also a dry fall that precipitated much of the tinder-dry brush that provided the fuel for the wildfires that ate Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and surrounding neighborhoods. Firefighters and homeowners couldn’t buy a rainshower to wet down the hills.

A remarkably wet kickoff to Northern California’s rainy season has coincided with a desperately dry fall in Southern California — a huge disparity, perhaps unprecedented, between the haves and have-nots of rainfall.

Los Angeles usually gets several inches of rain by now, halfway into the rainy season, but it’s only recorded a fifth of an inch downtown since July, its second driest period in almost 150 years of record-keeping. The rest of Southern California is just as bone-dry. 

At the same time, much of the northern third of the state has weathered nearly two months of storms, flooding and even tornadoes. Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco, has received more rain than nearly any other city in California — nearly two times its average rainfall to date. At the city’s airport, almost 7 inches fell on Nov. 20 alone, an all-time daily record.

Now, when the last thing Los Angeles needs is the deluges of late winter, the rains have started again, and so have the mudslides, unfortunately. There will be no breaks for anyone in that neck of the woods, I’m afraid, as the first ‘atmospheric river’ of the New Year flows onshore.

The only bright side is that the continued flow of water to the crucial reservoirs has them at or about their historical averages, and the vital Northern Sierra snowpack is well above normal, even as the southern components lag.

 When it comes to water resources, the northern Sierra Nevada snowpack is a harbinger of abundance or scarcity for 40 million California residents and businesses. The 2024-25 snow season has arrived and early snow brought optimism for a good year. After a strong start, overall California is currently below average at 81 percent.

Regardless of this year’s precipitation, redoubling efforts in conservation and planning for the future remains the pragmatic option for the Golden State and The West.

Statewide the reservoirs are looking terrific…

Califorinia Reservoirs are filling up, they might overflow due to Liberal tears..https://t.co/bhHTnn2tXk pic.twitter.com/Eac3LiAmoj

— Jeffrey Lowes ™ 🇨🇦 🇺🇲 (@jeffreylowes) February 17, 2025

…even as some are being forced to open spillways because there is just so much water, including some spillways that haven’t been used in years because the levels have remained so low. The Monticello Dam spillway hasn’t been activated since 2019.

A unique phenomenon, dubbed the ‘Glory Hole’ spillway, was activated at Lake Berryessa in California after a storm swept through the area. pic.twitter.com/6jzVmOd3PT

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) February 14, 2025

It looks like a Sarlaac pit.

Battle Over The Sarlacc

It’s wet and they don’t do ‘wet’ very well there, even though it happens in some form and intensity every single year, just like fire does.

California desperately needs rain and simultaneously doesn’t have the infrastructure to handle rain. pic.twitter.com/MBCg09tkqN

— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) February 15, 2025

And, once again, whatever the hardships faced by those in the fire and flood zones, it looks as if Mother Nature is going to save California from at least its water follies for another year.

For all that legislators and Gov Gavin Newsom found Trump’s water plan ‘alarming,’ there’s not much movement but talk, talk, talk and reworking older plans with the same goals they’ve been kicking around for decades. For example, ‘modernising’ the water supply:

Senator Anna M. Caballero has introduced Senate Bill 72, known as California Water for All. According to a press release from the senator’s office, this landmark legislation aims to modernize the California Water Plan, setting long-term water supply targets to address the state’s intensifying climate challenges.

The release continues on to state that SB 72 responds to urgent issues like prolonged droughts, aging infrastructure, wildfires, and climate change. It establishes a plan to secure water for urban, agricultural, and environmental needs, ensuring resilience for California’s economy and communities.

The legislation sets an interim goal of adding 9 million acre-feet of water supply by 2040, with a 50-year planning horizon to guide long-term targets. To achieve these, state agencies will collaborate with local water providers and other stakeholders.

 Welp.

As billions of gallons are released from spillways in overflow, some are diverted into larger containment systems, but much of it runs off.

Like it does every year.

I think that would be more alarming than Donald Trump pointing it out.