Santa Barbara starts Tuesday with some drizzle: could be a forecast of a wetter water season

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — A band of moisture flowed through Santa Barbara during the nine o’clock hour Tuesday morning. The light rain hardly collected into many big puddles. And began drying once the sun began shining through the clouds.

Historically Santa Barbara averages just less than 2 inches of rain each November at 1.79”. Santa Barbara County Public Work officials state that accounts for about 10% of the annual rainfall. October usually sees half of that at 0.90”. 

Public Works officials state that Santa Barbara is off to a wetter than normal start to the new water year. The water year starts on October 1 and goes until September 30 of the following year. In October Santa Barbara got 1.68” of rain. Tuesday morning Santa Barbara added another 0.09”. So far Santa Barbara is at 1.79” of rain for the new water year. The area averages just shy of 15” per year. After the first two months of the last water year Santa Barbara had only 0.09” of rain. And last water year Santa Barbara got 7.37” of rain.

A wetter year will help local reservoirs. Cachuma Reservoir is currently 48.2% filled. Meanwhile, Gibraltar Reservoir is only 4.8% filled.