Late-Season Storms Slowly Pulling Southern California Out Of Drought Conditions
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — After an unusually dry January and February, Southern California has been pummeled by a series of spring storms in late March and April, but has it been enough to catch up to normal rainfall totals?
"It's trying it's best," Eric Bolt, of the National Weather Service, said. "I mean, we're not quite there. We still need to see more rainfall to kind of get ahead because those two months we missed out on were some of our wettest months, so we're right near where we should be."
Bolt said the recent rain has really made an impact.
"March was at least an 1.5- to 2-inches above normal, so that really got us going later in the spring," Bolt said. "And then the storm we've recently had pushed up above the normal for the entire month of April."
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So far in April, downtown Los Angeles has seen more than 2 inches of rain, more than an inch above what the area usually sees all month.
And while rain is always a good thing in Southern California, the question now becomes what impact with the late-season downpours have on this year's upcoming fire season.
"Fire season is a really tricky thing to predict, it really depends on how much wind we see in the fall and early winter months," Bolt said. "What we really want to be concerned about is that we're going to have more grass growing because of all the rain."
As for the drought, Bolt said Southern California had started to see widespread dry conditions prior to the most recent storm systems, and the northern part of the state continues to be on the drier side.
"But down here in the southern part of the state, we're pretty much erasing the drought and we're back to a good position at this time," he said.
