Will San Diego get any significant rainfall soon?

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — It has been one of the slowest starts to the rainy season for San Diego in the county’s history, with only a fraction of an inch in precipitation recorded thus far, according to the National Weather Service.

It does not seem like that will be changing any time soon: Besides some potentially spotty drizzling, forecasters are not anticipating any significant rainfall heading into the new year.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Predication Center is projecting San Diego County — along with much of California — to remain at below average chances for precipitation through mid-January.

On the other hand, temperatures are anticipated to hover above seasonal averages during this time, according to NOAA’s most recent climate outlooks.

Taken together, it appears the recent pattern of mild, but dry weather will hold for another few weeks.

The persistently arid weather does not bode well for staving off the development of drought conditions, which had eased across much of the state following two years of particularly wet winters.

Prior to 2023, the first of these rainy years, California had been in the midst of a record-setting drought that pushed the levels of water in the state’s reservoirs to all-time lows and resulted in devastating blows to the agriculture industry.

The U.S. Drought Monitor already reinstated an “abnormally dry” designation for much of southern and central California, including San Diego, earlier this month.

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That is not to say all hope of keeping drought at bay with an ultimately decent rainy season is lost.

While it often portends lower-than-ideal rainfall yearly totals, there have been previous rainy seasons that had a sluggish start but shaped up to be closer to average by the end of the water year, or the 12-month period from October to September that is used to track precipitation.

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In the 1981 water year for instance, which is tied for the seventh slowest start to the rainy season in county history, San Diego recorded a rainfall total of 8.13 inches, according to the San Diego Water Authority — two inches shy of the regional average.

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