Mediterranean Climate (San Diego, Sacramento, Orange: gardens, to eat, farms)

[mxcolin]

Originally Posted by saibot

Seven years is a short time to be one particular location, meteorologically speaking. Yes, most of the past 7 years were "abnormally dry." That doesn't mean the averages are out of date. The average rainfall of a location isn't based on just a few years.

I've been in Orange County for 54 years. I can recall years when we only got 4 inches of rain, and years with 25+, and everything in between. Almost never has the season's rainfall been the published "average' amount.

Averages by their very nature are out of date the second they are published ;-)

[Chimérique]

Originally Posted by mxcolin

Days of precipitation in winter in the US:

Sac - 28
Nashville - 33
Raleigh - 30
Atlanta - 32
New York - 32
Houston - 28
Boston - 35
New Orleans - 27
Philadelphia - 32
Charlotte - 29
Chicago - 32
Washington DC - 29

So even with the reported numbers, which are way higher than reality, Sac is still drier than almost all US metro areas. How much more evidence do you need?

Assuming your numbers are real, reliable and from an accurate and truthful source:

I was going to say, oh know! he/she got me,

but those numbers of days are all pretty close, and they don't account for the AMOUNT of rain, but more importantly is that

28 days is healthy, especially considering, how many of those other winter days are also cloudy, maybe not cold-cold, but still cloudy and damp......and considering how dry Sacramento is the remainder of the year.

On that note, I'm going outside now, in the rain, cloudy, and wet Sacramento for some exercise. Light the Beam!

[Chimérique]

Originally Posted by mxcolin

Averages by their very nature are out of date the second they are published ;-)

Last years wet season, Sacramento had 25-27 inches of rain in 3 months. That's "Very Wet".

So we should only go by the very latest, right........

[mxcolin]

Originally Posted by Chimérique

OMG, you know thats not true, I'm going now or this madness will continue forever.

Last wet season, Sacramento had 25-27 inches of rain in 3 months. That's "Very Wet".

Tell me you know how averages work, please. You are not a weather station my friend, if it's wet it's wet. Not to mention in the last 7 years it has been nowhere near this. You know that if there is less than 1 day in 3 of rain, the average is not raining right? It's like 6th grade math.

[mxcolin]

Originally Posted by Chimérique

Assuming your numbers are real, reliable and from an accurate and truthful source:

I was going to say, oh know! he/she got me,

but those numbers of days are all pretty close, and they don't account for the AMOUNT of rain, but more importantly is that

28 days is healthy, especially considering, how many of those other winter days are also cloudy, maybe not cold-cold, but still cloudy and damp......and considering how dry Sacramento is the remainder of the year.

On that note, I'm going outside now, in the rain, cloudy, and wet Sacramento for some exercise. Light the Beam!

I'd love to know where the number of days of rain crosses your self-created "very wet" threshold?

25
20
15?

If 30% is "very wet" as you've defined. Not to mention that just means it rains once during that day. On the amount of absolute time of rain over the winter months, I'd doubt any more than 15-20%.

[Chimérique]

Originally Posted by mxcolin

Tell me you know how averages work, please. You are not a weather station my friend, if it's wet it's wet. Not to mention in the last 7 years it has been nowhere near this. You know that if there is less than 1 day in 3 of rain, the average is not raining right? It's like 6th grade math.

Last years wet season, Sacramento had 25-27 inches of rain in 3 months. That's "Very Wet".

So we should only go by the very latest, right........

There is around 150 years of observable and reported data, not to mention the other hundred and hundreds, thousand and thousand of years we don't have accurate weather data, its stupid to think in terms of the last 7 years only.

[mxcolin]

2017 - 26.05. (Ehhh)
2018 - 18.42 (Blah)
2019 - 24.88 (Moist)
2020 - 6.81 (Desert Like)
2021 - 18.90 (Arid)
2022 - 11.19 (Parched)
2023 - <10. (Crispy)

So even assuming we were all human weather stations like you appear to be it's still incredibly dry. An average of 17.1 inches. You're entire argument is, it was wey last year and I used to live in SoCal where it's drier. Madness.

[tstieber]

Originally Posted by Damnitjanet

At the time it was awarded the grant, Sacramento was either the number one or number two most likely regions in the country susceptible to a major flood. So the region got millions of dollars to expand the flood gates on the American River as well as to strengthen the levies on both the American River and Sacramento River as well as the ability to expand the ability to move flood water more rapidly to the Yolo bypass. New Orleans was the other place getting a bunch of federal money and depending on progress they made, that was shifting rankings around as infrastructure was built there.

It not that it rains real frequently every day in the winter but that Sacramento is prone to recurrent atmospheric rivers, that bring a large quantity of rain in very short period of time.

It's these recurrent atmospheric rivers that give us our wet winters in really short time frames and in the years they don't show we have a drought.

Southern California doesn't get Northern California rain. That's why it needs to take water from the Colorado River, the Owens River Valley and from pumping stations in the Sacramento River Delta as well as desalinization plants.

Yes, this is the salient point, that Sacramento does not have frequent rainfall but rather relatively few rainfall days with higher rainfall totals per event, compared to places where it rains a little bit all the time. That being said, the 15 to 20 inch average annual rainfall is not much higher than in Southern california, and it's only because of what falls in the nearby mountains as snow and is captured by man-made reservoirs that the state even has a good water supply. Pretty much no major area anywhere in California, including the bay area, could be sustained by local rainfall, which would be woefully inadequate. That's why it's important to know where it makes sense to capture snow melt runoff and basically harvest all the water for everyone and then distribute it throughout the state, whether that's 100 mi away, 200 miles away, or 400 miles away. By the way, does anyone know the status of all the additional water storage projects that voters approved a few years ago? Nothing's been built with that the earmarked funds

[tstieber]

Originally Posted by mxcolin

I can only comment on what I've experienced. I've lived in the Mediterranean, Sac is extremely similar.

You are correct, and in fact, much of the Mediterranean basin has higher annual rainfall totals than Sacramento. By the time you get to San diego, you are barely in Mediterranean climate territory anymore, it's really on the cusp of semi-arid. Sacramento is squarely Mediterranean, as the Mediterranean has a distinct rainy season.

I do agree with you that in general, Sacramento winters are very mild and pleasant compared to much of the country, it's just that compared to the endlessly sunny and drive summer season, it reflects a pronounced difference. But one only has to spend a little bit of time in most parts of the country to see that if SoCal is 99th percentile, Sacramento as you said is like 95th percentile

[mxcolin]

Originally Posted by tstieber

You are correct, and in fact, much of the Mediterranean basin has higher annual rainfall totals than Sacramento. By the time you get to San diego, you are barely in Mediterranean climate territory anymore, it's really on the cusp of semi-arid. Sacramento is squarely Mediterranean, as the Mediterranean has a distinct rainy season.

I do agree with you that in general, Sacramento winters are very mild and pleasant compared to much of the country, it's just that compared to the endlessly sunny and drive summer season, it reflects a pronounced difference. But one only has to spend a little bit of time in most parts of the country to see that if SoCal is 99th percentile, Sacramento as you said is like 95th percentile

Yes, exactly what you said here. It's amazing how skewed your view of the country's weather can be if you only know SoCal and Sacramento. Spend a winter in just about anywhere else and you will realize how ridiculous that viewpoint is.