00:00 I want to bring in now our Accuweather California expert, Ken Clark.
00:03 You know, Ken, you and I remember we're talking, when was it, in December or January, and we
00:09 were off to a very slow start to the wet season, but you cautioned me and you said, you know,
00:15 typically in El Ninos, the rain comes a little late, but when it comes, it comes and it stays.
00:22 And what a wet last couple of 30 days.
00:27 It really has been, and we're going to show you in a bit how wet it's been, but you can
00:31 see on this map that it's all green, some dark greens.
00:34 That shows very wet weather over the last 30 days across all of California.
00:39 Yeah, let's take a look at some numbers here.
00:42 Let's begin in Los Angeles, Ken, and you know, the records for Los Angeles downtown, although
00:48 they've moved the downtown location, they go way back in time, and here we are, the
00:55 fourth wettest February on record.
00:59 Fourth wettest February on record.
01:00 I'm going to look down here because I can't remember all these statistics that in my head
01:05 that haven't said here.
01:07 It's also the seventh wettest month ever in California.
01:11 Seventh wettest month ever.
01:13 And the other thing is, February is only the 10th month when there's been a foot or more
01:18 of rain.
01:19 That's ever.
01:20 So we're talking about the 1800s, it's only the 10th month of foot or more rain.
01:26 And Ken, you know that the other thing that's eye-popping, that 12.56, if you take the rain
01:30 in Los Angeles, the normal rain in December, January, February, and March, I think it's
01:36 a little over 11 and a half inches of rain, so the month of February, we've already received
01:42 all of our winter precipitation.
01:45 That's right.
01:46 So we're well above, we're at what, 17 and a half inches of rain for the year so far?
01:51 Yeah.
01:52 Yeah, 17.79.
01:53 That's well above the historical average for the entire wet season.
01:58 For the entire wet season.
01:59 It really is amazing.
02:00 Now, what's even more amazing, Ken, there was a time, January 1st, where we were looking
02:07 at the Sierra snowpack, or I should say, the lack thereof.
02:12 There was quite a bit of concern coming out of December, what the snowpack was going to
02:16 be this winter.
02:17 We were already at 20 to 30% of historical averages for January 1st.
02:21 However, now we're almost 80 to 100% of historical averages for February 21st.
02:28 And the other amazing thing is, now we're 70, 80% of, well, 70% of what is normal for
02:34 the entire winter season.
02:36 And we have more snow to come, and we're going to keep piling up snow in this year well into
02:41 March.
02:43 Let me ask you this, Ken.
02:44 Have you ever seen, when's the last time you saw reservoir levels this high, this time
02:50 of the year across California?
02:53 It's been quite some time.
02:54 Probably back in the 2018 area, if I have to guess again.
02:58 But it's been a while.
03:00 We had that, really, a decadal drought in California.
03:04 We were struggling to keep reservoirs even 60, 70% of average.
03:09 Now we're up in the 120, 130% of historical average.
03:13 They're releasing some water for some of the reservoirs.
03:15 So we're seeing just a tremendous amount of water in these reservoirs.
03:20 And this is going to be very important going forward here.
03:22 We don't have any concern at all of the coming summer season.
03:27 We're going to have plenty of water available for California and maybe well beyond.
03:31 Ken, really quick, dry weather in the next couple of days.
03:34 Really quick, 10 seconds, some storms on the way next week.
03:39 Some storms, a light to moderate storm Monday into Tuesday, maybe a bigger set of storms
03:45 next weekend into the following week.
03:48 All right.
03:49 California expert Ken Clark.
03:50 Nobody knows California any better than Ken.
03:53 Even me.
03:54 Thanks.
03:55 Stay with us.
03:56 We'll be back.
03:57 Thank you, Bernie.
03:57 (upbeat music)
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