Hollister residents waking up early this week might have heard the almost forgotten sound of raindrops falling on their roofs.
This year, between January and Thursday morning, 5.15 inches of rain have hit Hollister, an amount that is already higher than the 4.39 inches of precipitation recorded last year during the city’s driest year on record.
“So far, the rainfall we’ve had is a very good start in the right direction. We’re still in a drought. It was three years in the making,” said Steve Anderson, a forecaster for the San Francisco/Monterey Bay Area office of the National Weather Service. “It will take more than one storm to get out.”
Between Saturday and Thursday morning of this week, 1.08 inches of rain fell – a much higher total than the 0.02 inches of rain that fell during those same days last year.
“Well above last year,” Anderson said. “Last year, we hardly had any rain at all.”
There is a slight chance of showers Thursday and then another possible storm on Friday is forecast for this week.
The rain is a welcome change for many farmers and ranchers who watched Hollister wrap up its driest year on record in January 2014. Although so-called rain years are recorded from July 1 through June each year, the weather service database records historical totals by calendar year.
Last year, 4.39 inches of precipitation were recorded in Hollister, an amount that wasn’t even close to the next-lowest yearly total on record of 6.87 inches in 1989, according to forecaster Diana Henderson who spoke with the Free Lance in January.
For the most up to date forecast, go to the National Weather Service’s website at: www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr.
