Sacramento closes in on longest dry streak ever for the wet season. Will it rain soon?
Sacramento could get its first bit of rainfall in more than six weeks, as most of Northern California will see overnight temperatures dip below freezing this week amid a nationwide cold snap.
Weather service forecasts as of Tuesday morning showed a 20% chance of showers in the capital city by late morning or early afternoon, likely amounting to less than a tenth of an inch. Showers are also possible Saturday night and on Sunday.
The weather service has a freeze warning in place Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights warning of sub-freezing temperatures throughout the Sacramento Valley as well as some of the Bay Area.
Lows in Sacramento will be around 30 degrees, with daytime highs in the mid-50s, forecasts show. High temperatures should warm by Friday back into the low 60s.
In South Lake Tahoe, daytime highs in the low-to-mid 20s will give way to lows well below freezing this week, possibly reaching single digits Wednesday night.
Snow fell in the Sierra Nevada mountains Monday and will return Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. Weather service forecasters predicted about a foot to 18 inches of snow falling at summit level over those two days, with several inches possible above 4,000 feet.
Chain controls are in place on some stretches of Highway 50, Interstate 80, Highway 49 and Highway 88, according to Caltrans.
Sacramento dry streak approaching record for winter months
Even light showers would be much needed for Sacramento: It hasn’t rained since Jan. 7, a 45-day dry streak during what is normally the height of the city’s water year, weather service records show.
The rain-free streak of 45 days through Monday hasn’t yet set an all-time record for the wet season, according to the weather service, which defines the wet season as December through February.
Sacramento from late 2013 to early 2014 went 52 days without measurable rainfall, according to a weather service infographic. The capital city would tie that mark if it goes the rest of February without rain.
The long dry spell has wiped out most of the gains from a wet October and December, the weather service says.
Sacramento at the end of December had received more than 14 inches of rain for the water year, nearly 10 inches above normal at that point in the year, according to another graph from the weather service.
But the dry spell “has nearly eliminated Sacramento’s rain surplus from earlier in the water year,” the weather service wrote Sunday, faltering to less than 2 inches above average at that point.
The 2022 water year began Oct. 1, 2021. A huge chunk of the city’s rain for this water year came during a series of intense October storms that included Sacramento’s wettest day ever.
This story was originally published February 22, 2022 at 8:18 AM.
