Yes, even though the weather has been the consistent bright spot in my move to California, even that era must come to an end.
Please make the rain stop.
It has been rainy and cold here for what seems an eternity, and the newspapers helpfully point out that it is going to continue.
Forecasters have a message for weather-weary Northern California residents who endured the second-wettest March on record: There’s plenty more rain to come.
Meteorologists blame the unusually wet weather on a westerly wind pattern that has blown a series of storms into California in recent weeks and shows no signs of retreating for at least two more weeks.
San Jose residents huddled under umbrellas for 20 days last month, not quite matching the city’s record 21 days of rain in March 1983, the weather service reported. All of last month’s rain added up to 6.47 inches — about an inch below the 1907 record but still more than 4 inches above normal.
Last month was also one of the coldest on record in San Jose: Its average high of 58.5 degrees was almost a full degree below the 1897 record of 59.4 degrees.
It’s rained so much that my neighbors with basements are all flooded, so much so that our local community newspaper did a front page story on the flooded basements in my neighborhood.
Frankly, this is not what I signed up for. I want sun! I want 75° days! I want to wear shorts! I want to turn off the heat and open the windows like I did back in January.
Update, 12pm: The rain subsided a bit, so I went out back to discover that the ground has finally had enough water — my neighbors’ basements have been flooded for weeks, but this is the first time that my backyard has flooded. The ground just can’t take any more water. And we still have at least two weeks of rain still to come, according to forecasters.
March 2006
OK people listen up…
Seattle – 2.18 inches of rain
San Jose – 6.47
Santa Barbara – 3.86
L.A. – 2.52
San Francisco – 8.74
Oakland – 7.89
San Rafael – 11.48
Santa Cruz – 10.78
Santa Rosa – 9.15
Monterey – 8.21
Eureka – 11.11
Portland – 5.66
Honolulu. Hi – 16.98
That’s for all the times people said “I don’t like Seattle, it rains all the time.” Seattle was in fact, the driest city on the west coast.
Drier than Southern California
Drier than Mid California
Drier than Northern California
Drier than Oregon
Drier than Hawaii
Sorry…