RAIN CHECK: L.A. SOGGIER THAN SEATTLE.Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer What's wetter than San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden or even Seattle? Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. - at least this winter - which is headed for its second-rainiest season since 1877, when the National Weather Service began keeping records. Rainfall as of Monday afternoon totaled 32.03 inches downtown, more than three times the normal through the date of 9.89 inches and bearing down on the annual record of 38.18 inches set in 1883-84. ``It is possible before the season is over that we'd even top the record,'' National Weather Service technician Bruce Rockwell said Monday. Even average weather would give Los Angeles an additional 2.45 inches of rain in March and 1.04 inches in April. That 1883-84 record was set with the help of 12.36 inches of rain in March and 3.58 in April, records show. By the end of February that year, Los Angeles had 20.5 inches of rain. This season's rainfall to date has been exceeded only in 1889-90, when rain amounted to 33.91 inches by the end of February. Dry weather that March and April left the 1889-90 rain year No. 2 overall, at 34.84 inches. Average rain in downtown since 1914, Weather Service statistics show, has been 14.75 inches a year. Meanwhile, it's expected to be sunny today in Seattle. Rainfall there since October has amounted to 15.7 inches - two-thirds of normal - and mountain snowpack snow·pack n. An area of naturally formed, packed snow that usually melts during the warmer months. snowpack 1. is skimpy skimp·y adj. skimp·i·er, skimp·i·est 1. Inadequate, as in size or fullness, especially through economizing or stinting: a skimpy meal. 2. Unduly thrifty; niggardly. , leaving locals anxious about a repeat of the 2001 drought. San Francisco has had about 19.5 inches, about 40 percent more than average but no record. That's because February's storms have been steered away from Washington and Oregon by the jet stream: the storms picked up tropical moisture, then hit Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, , said John Dlugoenski, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com. This year has been labeled a light to moderate El Nio episode - milder than the one that pounded California in 1997-98 - but the recent storms have not followed the El Nio pattern of blowing east from Hawaii directly into the West Coast. Instead, the storms started over the northern Pacific Ocean, then stayed offshore as they traveled southeast, Dlugoenski said. Picking up moisture off Central or even South America South America, fourth largest continent (1991 est. pop. 299,150,000), c.6,880,000 sq mi (17,819,000 sq km), the southern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. , they came ashore in Southern California, hammering the Southland but largely avoiding Central California Central California can refer to one of several divisions or regions of the U.S state of California:
At Mammoth Mountain Mammoth Mountain is a large lava dome complex[1] that lies to the west of the town of Mammoth Lakes, California in the Inyo National Forest. Mammoth Mountain is home to the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area which is notable in that it gets an unusually large amount of in the Eastern Sierra, for example, where snowpack generally is measured in feet, this latest storm dropped 26 inches of new snow. But Mountain High ski resort in the San Gabriel Mountains San Gabriel Mountains, S Calif., E and NE of Los Angeles, running c.50 mi (80 km) westward from Cajon Pass. San Antonio Peak (10,080 ft/3,072 m) is the highest of the range. Citrus fruits are raised on the southern foothills. got 4 feet to 8 feet of snowfall. ``We started out with 3 to 5 feet and we had 4 to 8 feet on top of that,'' Mountain High spokesman John McColly said Monday, as snow continued to fall. Recent storms aren't the heaviest Southern Californians have ever seen. Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The sprawling, multi-centered megacity is such that its downtown core is often considered just another district like Hollywood or got 2.18 inches Saturday and 1.88 Sunday, bringing rainfall so far this month to 7.58 inches. Downtown's record one-day rainfall, set March 2, 1938, is 5.88 inches. This year might break the 121-year-old rainfall record if weather patterns persist, Dlugoenski said. ``It seems like the wet pattern we've been in will continue, at least through March,'' Dlugoenski said. ``At this point there's no sign the wet pattern is going to end anytime soon.'' Charles F. Bostwick, (661) 267-5741 chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): photo, 2 boxes Photo: The Ventura Freeway flooded in Woodland Hills in 1980. Daily News Box: (1) L.A.'S WETTEST YEARS SOURCE: National Weather Service (2) RAINFALL TOTALS |
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