Rain in Sacramento snaps record-long winter dry spell. How bad was the streak?
The streak is over.
Downtown Sacramento on Tuesday morning got its first measurable amount of rainfall since Jan. 7, snapping a 66-day dry spell representing the city’s longest dry stretch ever recorded during winter.
But don’t break out the galoshes just yet. The National Weather Service’s official gauge for downtown Sacramento received just 0.28 inches for the day. Other spots in the capital region received more: 0.62 inches in Orangevale, 0.71 in Loomis, 0.93 at Bullards Bar Reservoir and 0.99 in El Dorado Hills.
Rain should return to the Sacramento Valley this weekend, currently in the forecast for Saturday, though forecast amounts aren’t yet settled.
In the interim, Sacramento will see mostly sunny skies and high temperatures in the low 70s Wednesday through Friday, with overnight lows in the mid-40s. Daytime highs will likely drop to around 60 degrees with Saturday’s storm system.
A few inches of snow are expected to accumulate Tuesday in the central Sierra Nevada range near pass level, according to the weather service.
Snow could fall lower, at elevations of 4,000 feet and higher, on Saturday.
Chain controls and mountain travel delays are likely Saturday, the weather service says.
Not even close to a drought-buster
It would take more intense and much, much more frequent rain and snowstorms to bust California out of its drought.
Just a few months after Sacramento recorded the wettest single day in its history, 2022 has brought the driest 2½-month start to a calendar year in city history, and it’s not even remotely close.
Weather service records show that between the 0.04 inches that fell Jan. 7 and trace amounts a handful of other days, the downtown Sacramento station got just 0.05 inches between Jan. 1 and March 14.
Prior to this year, downtown had never even received less than an inch-and-a-half between the two dates, according to weather records dating back to 1877. The previous low came in 2013, at 1.54 inches. The next lowest, 1.69 inches, came in 2020.
The city’s normal cumulative precipitation total between Jan. 1 and March 14 is 8.96 inches.
In other words, the historic average for that time frame is nearly 180 times higher than what fell this year.
This story was originally published March 15, 2022 at 8:53 AM.
