If you thought that this month's storms were worse than usual, it's not just because you're getting weaker in your old age. According to the National Weather Service, which has local rainfall records going back to 1849, January 2017 was the sixth-wettest January San Francisco has seen since the Gold Rush days.
KRON 4 reports that San Francisco has received 9.42 inches of rain this month, a staggering 284 percent of what's normally expected this time of year. The closest comparable January in recent memory, according to the Chron, was "when El Niño-fueled storms dumped 9.98 inches" over the course of January 1998.
The wettest ever January on record was in 1862, when we got 23.01 inches of rain and when disastrous floods occurred throughout California and the Pacific Northwest. In an average year, which for the NWS runs from October through September, SF gets about 23.65 inches. This (NWS) year, we've already hit 18.28 inches.
Of course, SF isn't the only local city with record-setting rainfall this month: According to the NWS, Santa Rosa got 18.95 inches (334 percent of the usual rainfall), Napa got 12.11 inches (348 percent), San Jose got 5.61 inches (247 percent), and Santa Cruz got 14.88 inches (338 percent).
People who own calendars might be asking why the NWS appears to be closing the books on January so soon, as we've got a almost a week left of the month. But according to forecasters, things are expected to remain dry for the remaining days of January, with the next storm predicted to hit us late on the 31st.
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Remembering the Great Flood of 1862