The drought is far from over, but the dousing from this week’s storm has pushed many areas of Santa Barbara County to above-normal levels of rainfall for the season.
Goleta and Lompoc are both leading the pack, with 114 percent of average rainfall for the rain season, which began Sept. 1.
As of 8 a.m. Thursday, Goleta had recorded 3.68 inches of rain, while Lompoc had received 2.79 inches.
Santa Barbara was at 110 percent of normal with 3.17 inches, while Santa Maria recorded 101 percent, with 2.24 inches, and San Marcos Pass received 5.76 inches or 100 percent.
Buellton, with 1.91 inches, was the county’s driest spot at 66 percent of normal.
Santa Ynez was at 77 percent with 2.08 inches, and Carpinteria was at 71 percent with 2.25 inches.
The countywide average stood at 90 percent of normal precipitation for this point in the rain season.
Santa Barbara receives an average of 2.94 inches of rain in December and three days into the month, already had measured 2.29 inches, with showers adding a bit more Thursday morning.
The rainfall this week has been great for watering plants, but has done little to fill local reservoirs or mitigate the ongoing drought.
Water officials say several more storms would be needed in succession in order for there to be significant runoff into Lake Cachuma and other local reservoirs.
Cachuma, which picked up 150 acre-feet of water from the recent rainfall, is at 28.5 percent of capacity, and nearly 65 feet below spill level. It was 28.4 percent full prior to the storm.
Gibraltar Reservoir and Jameson Reservoir, on the Upper Santa Ynez River, were at 12.9 percent and 22.3 percent full, respectively, up slightly from their pre-storm readings.
The big question on many people’s minds is what’s ahead for rainfall this season.
The most recent update from the national Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service, indicates there is a 65-percent chance of an El Niño condition developing in the Northern Hemisphere in the spring of 2015. That consensus estimate is up from 58 percent in November.
While there is no guarantee, El Niño conditions — characterized by rises in sea-surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific — often bring above-normal rainfall to the West Coast of the United State, including Santa Barbara County.
If El Niño does develop, forecasters expect it to be relatively weak.
Meanwhile, there is a 40-percent chance of showers late Friday night in Santa Barbara, but otherwise the forecast is for mostly sunny skies through the middle of next week.
[Click here for the latest forecast]
— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
