How Much Rain Is Needed to End the California Drought? - Golden Gate Weather Services

How Much Rain Is Needed to End the California Drought?

How Much Rain Do We Need to End the California Drought?

First, drought, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Each different user group has their own metric for how much is enough for them to breathe easier. For some activities just a normal rainfall year in their local area might be enough, while much of the state needs at least 150% of normal and some users may need on the order of 200% of normal. Of course all of these solutions are complicated by California’s complex water delivery system which means that where the rainfall is measured is not necessarily where it is used! [The Drought Monitor and Drought Termination and Amelioration pages give some insight, though both are biased by factors related to agricultural drought.]

A simplistic way to look at the water shortage in California is to look at the rainfall deficits around the state from the past four seasons, and then add in the current rainfall season. In doing so (see table below) the deficits range from almost two times normal to about three-and a half time normal.

Or to look at it another way, all but Salinas would need an all-time record rainfall year to erase the 5-year deficit.

Jan Null, CCM
Golden Gate Weather Services
http://ggweather.com

Jan Null

Jan Null has been a meteorologist in the San Francisco Bay Area for 50 years and is frequently seen on television and heard on the radio when weather is in the news. Twenty-six years ago he founded a consulting firm, Golden Gate Weather Services, after a 24-year career with the National Weather Service. Mr. Null is a Bay Area native, having grown up in Oakland and lived in the East Bay until 2006 when he moved to Saratoga. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Atmospheric Science from UC Davis in 1974 and his Master’s from San Jose State in 1992. Jan joined the National Weather Service in 1974 at the Weather Service Forecast Office in Redwood City. He worked as an operational forecaster throughout his career, including 13 years as Lead Forecaster. During his tenure at the NWS he also served as Meteorologist-in-Charge at the Center Weather Service Unit at the FAA’s Air Traffic Control Center in Fremont. He also did extensive research into the relationship between El Niño, La Niña and California rainfall and throughout his career he was a frequent media spokesperson for the agency. Jan has also been an Adjunct Professor and Lecturer at San Francisco and San Jose State Universities where he taught one evening a week for nearly 30 years. In 1998, Jan founded Golden Gate Weather Services, a consulting firm that specializes in forensic meteorology. He frequently serves as an expert witness in litigation where the weather is a factor. This often involves reconstructing past weather events or as his wife refers to it: “CSI Weather”. Mr. Null is also an internationally recognized expert of the sad topic of the heatstroke deaths of children in vehicles. After the death of a child left a vehicle in San Jose in 2001 he did a comprehensive study of vehicle temperatures that was ultimately published in Pediatrics in 2005. Since that time he has spoken at numerous national conferences and worked with a wide variety of child safety advocacy groups and agencies to raise awareness about the dozens of children who die from hyperthermia in hot vehicles each year. This data continues to be updated at NOHeatstroke.org. In his spare time he is a serious amateur photographer, specializing in wildlife and landscapes. Jan is married to Susan Hollis, a lifelong Saratoga resident and Realtor. He has two adult children in the Bay Area and the world’s most adorable 9-year old granddaughter and 4-year grandson.

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