{"id":408351,"date":"2026-01-15T08:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T08:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/408351\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T08:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T08:03:10","slug":"beyond-the-forecast-record-setting-rain-delivers-one-of-the-wettest-starts-to-ca-water-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/408351\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond The Forecast: Record-setting rain delivers one of the wettest starts to CA water year"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Record-setting rain this season has pushed California completely out of the “abnormally dry” category on the U.S. Drought Monitor for the first time in 25 years<\/a>, as a series of storms delivered one of the wettest starts to the water year across the state.<\/p>\n

Southern California saw a notably soggy holiday period, with rain on Christmas Eve and Christmas marking the fourth-wettest two-day holiday stretch on record.<\/p>\n

Recent storms have helped drive the region into one of its wettest openings to a water year.<\/p>\n

Data from the National Weather Service in Oxnard shows that, as of last week, all official climate sites were within the top five wettest starts to a water year. For several cities – including Lancaster, Sandberg, Camarillo, Oxnard and Santa Barbara – it has been the wettest start on record.<\/p>\n

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All climate sites have already received more than 70% of their normal full-season rainfall totals. Some mountain areas have seen close to two feet of rain in recent months, with isolated locations recording even more.<\/p>\n

Mount Wilson experienced one of the most dramatic surges. As of Jan. 5, it had received nearly 45 inches of rain – the most ever recorded at the site through that date since recordkeeping began in 1949. The previous record, set in the 1960s, was about five inches lower.<\/p>\n

With a normal full water-year total just over 32 inches, Mount Wilson has already reached 139% of its typical seasonal rainfall.<\/p>\n

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Many areas have either matched or surpassed their average full-season rainfall totals, despite months remaining in the wet season. January is typically one of the region’s rainiest months, with February and March also contributing to yearly precipitation.<\/p>\n

With the wettest months still ahead, the season’s already exceptional rainfall totals may continue to climb.<\/p>\n


<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Record-setting rain this season has pushed California completely out of the “abnormally dry” category…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[196352,192,79],"class_list":["post-408351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-196352","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}