2010-2011 rainfall year — It’s a wrap!

The Menlo Park area received 20.8 inches of rain in the rainfall year ending today, according to my backyard gauges. That compares to 21.39″ for the 2009-2010 year. The SFO total was 22.98″ and San Jose, 15.61″ — we routinely fall between the two.

The big rainfall months were: November 2.75″, December 4.55″, February 4.75″, and March, 4.7″ January was surprisingly low at .45″. In fact, the month of June, with not quite an inch, beat January — a highly unusual occurrence. (The San Francisco Chronicle reported it was the first time this has happened since the Gold Rush began in 1849.)

I compute an average of the 14 years I have been compiling totals. This would be my ‘normal’ — that is 19.43″ and 18.77″ discarding the high and low years. Given that, the rain year 2010-2011 can be viewed as a very decent year. How did we ever have 38.6″ in 1998?

Editor’s note: Many locals have commented that this year’s rain pattern has produced an abundance of flowers and a bumper crop of roses, such as this one photographed by Scott Loftesness in June at the St. Raymond Church garden.