Over the weekend, both the San Francisco International Airport and the Oakland International Airport surpassed their annual rainfall amounts… just a month into 2023.
For what felt like the first time in ages, the sun is out — beaming, bright, and making our little mental health walks not all too depressing. But Saturday and Sunday were far from rain-free affairs. Twenty-four-hour rainfall totals for each day surprised well over 1.5” for many parts of the SF Bay Area; Mount Diablo, for example, had 2” of rainfall on Sunday alone.
What transpired from all that rain was more mudslides, more region-wide flooding, and more flash floods that impacted residential areas. In metros around the Bay Area, the antiquated states of municipal sewage systems began to crack in literal and metaphorical ways. Some neighborhoods, including zip codes in San Francisco, had untreated human waste spilled into them; the San Francisco Chronicle put together a handy-dandy map you can scroll through to see if your area was impacted.
This morning San Francisco Int'l has now surpassed their average annual water year total of 19.64". SFO joins Oakland Int'l in assuring an above average water year this winter.
— Drew Tuma (@DrewTumaABC7) January 16, 2023
Aside from the above-mentioned grab-bag of things, the SF Bay Area chapter of the National Weather Service made it known that SFO and OAK each broke their yearly rainfall averages over the weekend.
At 19.25” Oakland Airport has now exceeded their annual rainfall for the entire water year.
— Drew Tuma (@DrewTumaABC7) January 15, 2023
At 19.25” Oakland Airport has now exceeded their annual rainfall for the entire water year,” tweeted ABC7 Meteorologist Drew Tuma. Just a day after that tweet was sent, the regionally beloved on-screen weather muse shared that SFO had also joined OAK in exceeding its yearly rainfall totals: “This morning San Francisco Int’l has now surpassed their average annual water year total of 19.64″. SFO joins Oakland Int’l in assuring an above-average water year this winter.”
And with more wet weather to descend on the SF Bay Area later this week, those totals are only going to grow. Mind you: The entire state of California is still experiencing drought conditions, but those states of dryness are quickly improving for the better.
What else happened this weekend in and around San Francisco? Here’s a little run down on some of the bigger bits.
- Mudslides caused major mayhem (and evacuations) in East Bay. Sometime Sunday night, toppled trees, as well as at least two mudslides, caused parts of Highway 13 in Oakland to close, while Monday morning saw a continuingly worse landslide situation; Oakland Public Works is now needing to hire contractors to properly clean up the massive slide at Alvarado Road. More info.
- The White House has declared a state of California’s flooding and severe wet weather a “major disaster.” By doing so, the State of California will have more federal funds allocated to it for properly addressing emergency spending costs, like road repairs, housing displaced residents, and more. More info.
- Now, there are reservoirs in Santa Clara that are at capacity. We mentioned last week that all of Marin County’s seven water reservoirs are 100% full, and, after this weekend’s rain, four out of the ten reservoirs in Santa Clara County are completely filled. More info.
- Dungeness crab season is officially back in full swing, baby! After this year’s commercial season was (rightfully) paused to allow safe passage for migrating marine life — predominantly humpback whales — it was allowed to commence New Year’s Eve day; but, over the weekend, the commercial trapping restriction of 50% was lifted, as well as the recreational crabbing using crab traps were allowed to resume operation. More info.
Feature image: Courtesy of Twitter via [at]binocularity
