San Francisco’s second-wettest day on record triggered flooding, while snowfall rates topped 7 inches per hour in the Sierra Nevada.
All told on Saturday, downtown San Francisco registered 5.46 inches of rain, marking its second-wettest day in records dating to 1849. December is the city’s wettest month, with an average of 4.76 inches of rain. But the New Year’s Eve deluge boosted December 2022’s total to more than twice that: 11.7 inches., or conveyor belt-like corridors of tropical moisture with origins as far away as Hawaii.
Atmospheric rivers carry their heaviest moisture about a mile above the ground, which is why higher elevations, like the Coastal Range and the Sierra Nevada, ordinarily end up with the jackpot precipitation totals. Saturday’s setup was a bit different — what began as an atmospheric river transitioned into more of a classic soaking rain event as a center of low pressure passed overhead. That brewed downpours and isolated thunderstorm activity, which led to higher rainfall rates.
During a three-hour window in San Francisco between roughly 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday, the airport measured 2.63 inches of rain. Nearby Oakland nabbed its wettest day since records began in 1970, with 4.75 inches of rain. Redwood City saw 4.88 inches, its third-greatest daily total in the past 116 years.So much rain fell on the final day of the year that it accounted for one-quarter to one-third of 2022’s total precipitation at multiple locations from San Francisco to Stockton, according to Weather Service data.
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