A major rainstorm has been hovering over California for the past few days. Where I am it hasn't been that bad. Los Angeles has gotten it worse.
Over Sunday and Monday, the rain totals are as follows in these areas in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles:
Bel Air Hotel: 11.64 inches
Sepulveda Canyon: 11.64 inches
Stunt Ranch: 11.07 inches
Beverly Hills: 7.95 inches
Downtown Los Angeles: 7.01 inches
This is actually the third most amount of rain ever fallen upon downtown LA in 2 days, and the most since 1956. That surprises me, as I remember some storms which seemed a lot more brutal than this one. I think this one just had a lot of consistent rain which added up to 7 inches in 2 days there. We didn't get that much where I am.
Downtown LA has averaged only 12 inches of rain per year from 1990-2020, and these two days were more than the entire year of rain in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons, both of which got slightly less than 6 inches total.
More importantly, snow is finally dumping in the Sierra Nevada range, which supplies most of LA's water. This year's precipitation pattern was unusual, with the LA area getting an above average amount of rain, but the mountains sitting far below normal. Usually the two are closely associated, but this year's storms kept dying before reaching the mountains. This one is providing snow, and in fact Mammoth Lakes (the town where Mammoth Mountain is) was inaccessible from the outside yesterday, with all roads in/out closed.
A stretch of Pacific Coast Highway is currently closed in Ventura County, from Pt Mugu to Malibu, due to some of the road breaking off:
I decided to skip an O8 tournament today at Commerce due to the heavy rainfall, especially since I don't live close to it.
February averages as the wettest month in southern California, with January being second. Almost all rainfall in the LA area typically falls between November 15 to March 15, with only small amounts falling outside that 4 month span. The period of May 15 through October 15 often sees no rain at all.