As of today, February 8, there has been no measurable rainfall (i.e., 0.01" or greater) in San Francisco for 14 days and no rain in the forecast for at least another week. Mid-winter dry spells are NOT unusual (see http://ggweather.com/enso/winter_dry_spells.htm ), but how far would we need to go extend the current dry streak to make it into record territory? Actually a lot farther!
If we had no rain in the next two weeks, that would bring the total number of consecutive dry days to 28, the 9th longest streak in SF's 169 year period of record. And if extended through the end of the month that would bring the total to 34 days or 4th longest.
Note in the table below that the winter of 2014-2015 had two of the top six dry spells with a 43 day period from late December into February (43 days), almost immediately followed by a 30 day dry spell into early March!
Jan Null, CCM Adjunct Professor of Meteorology San Jose State University Phone: (408) 379-7500 Email: jan.null@sjsu.edu
