LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – While snow and freezing temperatures are hitting many parts of the United States, the year 2014 has gotten off to a warm and dry start in Lake County and much of the rest of California.
And that isn't likely to change any time soon, according to forecasters.
California's rainy season traditionally runs from October to March, but so far there has been little rain in that time frame.
A new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that California had a record-low level of precipitation in 2013. The agency also reported that November 2013 had the highest overall global temperature on record.
The US Drought Monitor's latest report has Lake County listed as being in “severe drought,” with NOAA's most recent US Seasonal Drought Outlook, released Dec. 19, showing that most of California – including Lake County – in currently in persistent drought conditions that could intensify.
Last week AccuWeather.com also reported that 2013 was California's driest year on record, as Lake County News has reported.
In an interview this week with Lake County News, Ken Clark, an AccuWeather senior meteorologist based in California, said there has been a “tremendous lack of rainfall” around the region.
San Francisco's amount of rainfall in 2013 was at roughly 16 percent of normal, according to AccuWeather, with Sacramento posting 31 percent of normal and Redding 38 percent of normal.
For the rest of the winter, “The chance of getting anywhere close to normal is out of the question,” said Clark, with seasonal models leading forecasters to predict below to well below normal precipitation through March, when the rainy season ends.
The benefits of several days of rain Lake County experienced in late November were essentially wiped out by a windstorm that dried up vegetation and did an estimated $6 million in damage, according to local officials.
Conditions this fall and early winter have been so dry that Cal Fire didn't call an official end to the fire season until Dec. 16, nearly a month and a half later than in 2012.
Cal Fire Battalion Chief Greg Bertelli told Lake County News in a recent interview that county residents need to continue to exercise caution because of the unseasonably dry conditions.
Clear Lake normally is filling up at this time of year. US Geological Survey records – which track the lake's depth consistently going back to 1912 – show that the lake usually is lowest in the months of October through the first half of December, at which point rain starts to raise the lake level.
On Wednesday the lake had a mean – or average – level of 0.60 feet Rumsey, with Rumsey being the special measurement used for Clear Lake based on the Grigsby Riffle, a rock sill located near Lower Lake at the confluence of Cache and Seigler creeks.
According to USGS records, Wednesday's reading is the lowest Jan. 1 mean level since Jan. 1, 1991, when the mean level was 0.32 feet Rumsey.
The historical mean level for Jan. 1 from 1913 through 2010 is 2.84 feet Rumsey, the USGS reported.
Yolo County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, which holds the water rights to Clear Lake and to Indian Valley Reservoir, reported that between Oct. 1 and and Dec. 23 there was less than an inch of precipitation – 0.67 to be exact – impacting Clear Lake, compared to 18.34 inches for the same period in 2012.
The Indian Valley Reservoir area has had only slightly more rain – also less than an inch, at 0.86 – compared to 10.05 inches between Oct. 1 and Dec. 23, 2012, the district reported.
Like Clear Lake, Indian Valley Reservoir's levels are well below normal.
For comparison, on Dec. 23, 2012, the reservoir's storage was 81,485 acre feet (an acre foot is the amount of water needed to cover an acre in one foot of water, or 43,560 cubic feet). The most recent data available – from this past Dec. 18 – showed storage had dropped to 14,437 acre feet.
Those low numbers are in keeping with a prediction for a drier-than-normal winter that AccuWeather made late last summer, Clark said.
While December 2012 was very wet, once January arrived, “The spigots were turned off,” said Clark, with 20 to 30 percent of normal rainfall the rest of the winter.
He said forecasters knew going into 2013 – on the heels of a very dry winter, spring and summer – that it wasn't going to be good news for the rest of the year or for the beginning of 2014.
Looking at the forecast in the first week of the new year, no rain is predicted. Clark said one computer forecast model seems to indicate a small amount of rain around Jan. 7 or 8.
However, he added, “I don't see any rain at least in the foreseeable future.”
In making their forecasts, AccuWeather's meteorologists draw on a number of sources, such as short-term computer models of the atmosphere that are issued four times a day, along with longer-term seasonal models that give overall weather patterns for three-month periods, and North American and Pacific upper atmosphere oscillation, Clark explained.
There also is electronic snow survey data, a key measurement because of the importance of the state's snowpack as a water source.
The California Department of Water Resources will hold its first manual snow survey of the season this Friday, but online data shows that the statewide snowpack is averaging 20 percent of normal.
“Unfortunately, I don't see that changing any time soon,” said Clark.
Clark said he expects to see less snow – not more – in the months ahead.
“There is a heck of a lot of ground that needs to be made up and that isn't very likely,” he said.
Based on the available information and weather models, Clark said it will be a drier than normal winter for Lake County and the rest of California.
If the next three to four months have below-normal precipitation, Clark said the state could be looking at some very detrimental water restrictions for agriculture.
Follow Clark's weather blog at http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/clark .
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.