Sonoma County Gazette, June 2015: The Drought

You might want to consult a Ouija board to find out when the drought will end or even when it started. We have been getting very confusing signals not only from weather patterns and rainfall amounts, but also from the people who track them. Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) claims we are in the fourth year of drought, but rainfall numbers don’t necessarily bear that out. On the other hand, Lake Pillsbury and Lake Mendocino are definitely ‘low’ now, even though, according to the State’s calculations, they have had a ‘normal’ rain year.

Erratic rainfall averages during the last four years….As an example, Santa Rosa normally gets an average of 32” of rain each season. In 2012, Santa Rosa got 37.58” for entire year according to the University of California Cooperative Extension. In 2013, they had 4.85”, in 2014: 34.66”, and in the first five months of 2015: 4.33”. So according to the numbers, in the last four years we have had two normal years, one very dry year, and this year is definitely lower than normal but we don’t know final numbers yet.