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How dry has it been this season?
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As the current rainfall season (July 1st to June 30th) begins to wind down it’s time to put the rain for this and recent seasons into perspective. 
A good measuring stick for not only the Bay Area but for much of Northern and Central California is San Francisco, with a rainfall record, the longest in the state, going back the 1849.
So far in the 2008-2009 rainfall season San Francisco has received 17.07 inches of rain, or 86% of its 19.86 inches normal to date. If normal rain continues for the remainder of the season, San Francisco will end up with 18.99 inches or 85% of normal, and even if there is no more rainfall this season the season would end with 76% of normal.
Historically, the 17.07 inches recorded so far ranks as just the 44th driest in the past 160 seasons and 19.86 inches would be the 70th driest, or actually in the wetter half of the entire period of record.
But to put the rainfall into a broader perspective the total for the past three seasons is 51.46 inches or 84% of the 3-year normal of 65.62 inches. 84% does not sound particularly dire in the context of a single year; or even for a 3-year period.
However, if it is thought of as a deficit of over 14 inches, or about two-thirds of a single season’s rain then the magnitude of the shortage can be better appreciated. Bottom line, despite a fabulaously wet February and okay March there is too much to make up and too little time to do it this year!
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