The rain drenching Santa Barbara is breaking records that stretch back more than a century.

The County of Santa Barbara reported that it’s the wettest beginning to the rainy season for the city, with 9.5 inches of rain recorded so far — and 8 inches of that in November.

The county has been tracking rainfall since the 1899-1900 season, and this is the wettest start to the water year, which runs Sept. 1 through Aug. 31, according to Flood Control District senior hydrologist Shawn Johnson.

The previous record for wettest start of the season was in 1983.

As of Monday, the region has seen 44% of its normal water-year totals, and 460% of its normal-to-date rainfall, according to the county.

Santa Barbara essentially got half of its average yearly rainfall already. The mean water-year rainfall total for the city is 18.44 inches.

According to Bryan Lewis, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, the agency did expect to see high rainfall from the storms, but the amount exceeded what it expected. Areas such as the San Marcos Pass saw 2.68 inches during the past 24 hours and more than 12 inches in the past week.

“We’re off to a good start, that’s for sure,” Lewis said. “It’s quite the wet start to the water year.”

However, Lewis said it is hard to predict what the rest of the rainy season will look like. Previous years with wet starts turned out to be drier than average.

Johnson, from the Flood Control District, said a wet November doesn’t necessarily predict a wetter-than-usual year. Other years with at least 7 inches of rain in November were a mixed bag: 1927 had a close-to-average year, 1966 was drier than usual, and 1983 was much wetter than normal with 41.41 inches, according to the county.

What the Rain Means for Reservoirs

Although the rain will be beneficial for the region, it may be too soon to expect it to alleviate any droughts or fill reservoirs.

Walter Rubalcava, the Santa Barbara County Public Works deputy director of water resources, said that despite the heavy rain, it most likely will not fill any reservoirs or groundwater supply.

“We were just a very, very dry sponge,” Rubalcava said. “The sponge is now wet, but as far as producing groundwater and runoff in the rivers, we’re just not at that point yet. It’s just too early in the season.”

Rubalcava said that based on measurements of the region’s dryness, the ground would need about 12 inches of rain to produce 1 inch of runoff.

After the most recent storm, the ground will need about 6 inches of rain to produce 1 inch of runoff.

He said that if the county sees more storms during the rest of the winter, it will likely see runoff start to fill reservoirs.

Lake Cachuma is currently filled to 76% of its total capacity, and the upstream Jameson Reservoir is holding 80% of its total volume.

“Everything is primed right now,” Rubalcava said. “Like, if we got another storm right now, we would definitely start to see that.”