Record January-February rain total for Sacramento | The Sacramento Bee

The rain that fell in Sacramento added up to a record when the months of January and February were combined.

The drenching that Sacramento experienced last month strained creeks and caused some flooding, but February was not the wettest on the record. A total of 8.04 inches fell in Sacramento in February.

Other wet Februaries occurred in 2000 (8.93 inches) and 1986 (10.30 inches). If not for a weeklong dry spell late in the month, those marks might have been surpassed.

But when the extremely wet January 2017 (9.85) is combined with the very wet February 2017 (8.04), the combined two-month total is a record 17.89 inches. The National Weather Service said Wednesday that wettest Januaries and Februaries ever recorded in Sacramento are these:

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▪ 2017: 17.89 inches

▪ 1878: 17.30

▪ 1969: 16.51

▪ 1998: 16.22

▪ 1909: 16.18

▪ 1986: 15.18

The very wet beginning of 2017 comes after some dry early starts to recent years. For instance, while last year the first two months were a solid 6.82 inches, 2015 recorded just 2.27 for January-February, 2014 had 4.69 inches, 2013 had 1.32 inches and 2012 had 3.46 inches.

The normal rainfall for the month of January is 3.97 in Sacramento, while the average in February is 3.82 inches. That’s a combined two-month total of 7.79 inches.

Dry weather that characterized the final days of February are likely to continue through Friday. The National Weather Service is predicting sunny weather until a slight chance of rain this weekend.