How’s the Weather? ‘Wet Indeed!’

The National Weather Service in Hanford customarily delivers its forecasts and wrap-ups in a just-the-facts manner.

But its Twitter account shared much enthusiasm for this week’s slow-moving storm that is strengthening the summer water outlook after February’s dry skies.

“Wet indeed!” trumpeted the NWS-Hanford tweet Thursday morning tallying the 48-hour rain totals in the central and southern San Joaquin Valley.

The Bakersfield area received the heaviest dousing Wednesday, but Fresno received .11 of an inch. That brought April’s Fresno total to 1.22 inches and the season total to 7.08 inches. Earlier this week, this same storm delivered enough rain to knock the 2019-20 season out of the Top 10 driest years for Fresno since 1878.

Warm-up Coming, but Rain Possible Next Week

The NWS-Hanford forecast calls for continuing wet weather Thursday for the central and southern Valley with “locally heavy rain and mountain snow.” High pressure then is expected to build this weekend “for much warmer and drier weather.”

However, the forecast also includes the possibility of rain late next week.

“By Thursday afternoon (April 16) the low is forecast to move to a position about 200 miles of San Diego and GPS generates some precipitation for SoCal and along the Sierra Crest where afternoon showers may occur. It will be interesting to see if this comes to fruition as additional precipitation would be welcome,” said NWS-Hanford.

Water Storage Tracking in California

The charts below are from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography with information compiled by Mike Dettinger, who tracks water storage in the Sierra Nevada.

(Scripps Institution of Oceanography)