With the recent rainfall in the Bay Area this week, some have hoped that the storms might help alleviate the record drought the region has been suffering through in recent years.
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But it's unlikely to make a dent, according to National Weather Service Bay Area meteorologist Drew Peterson.
"The rain that we're receiving right now in no shape, or stretch of the imagination is really going to do a significant amount of catching up with our multi-year drought," he said.
After the promising beginning of the wet season in October last year, the region experienced record dry weather for several months.
"Last year we were off to a great start," said Peterson. "Pretty much everywhere was above normal."
But after October, there was little precipitation for months afterwards, when typically there would be some rainfall, leading to an exceptionally dry season.
"One of the longest, in several areas history, between January 1st, and I believe it was almost into late February, I think was over 50 days for some locations," he said.
While these recent storms bring April closer to the normal range for this time of year, it's not going to bring the area back to normal overall.
Following this week, the forecast is looking dry up until possibly the beginning of May, according to Peterson.
But the good news is that the recent rainfall does put the region in a better position for this year's fire season.
"Our fire season's kind of like a horse saddle, there's a there's an increase in fire danger oftentimes in the middle-to-late spring," he said. Then it levels off during the foggy season, and the risk goes up again in September and October.
The increased precipitation right now will likely delay fire season risk until after that foggy season.
"Essentially what this rain is doing is pushing back that smaller saddle fire danger we often see in the late spring and kind of getting us into that cooler moisture summer season," said Peterson.
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