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Rains this month have helped boost rainfall totals across the region but they're not enough to end the statewide drought, now entering its third year.
Recent storms that brought wet weather to the Bay Area and most of Northern California last week dumped a massive amount of snow on the Sierra Nevada for the month of April, said the National Weather Service. The storm dumped approximately 31.1 inches of snow, increasing the snowfall total for the month to 76 inches — “almost double what we received January through March,” the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab tweeted Friday. Snowfall totals also increased California’s snowpack in the last week to 35% of average by the weekend — up from 28% of average on April 15, according to the California Department of Water Resources. However, those totals are still lower than the 38% of average recorded during the April 1 snow survey by state water officials, the lowest peak accumulation in seven years.
This month’s storms also helped bring precipitation and rainfall totals above average for the month of April in the Bay Area. But it wasn’t enough to reverse the state’s drought, meteorologists said. It also means water restrictions in many municipalities will also not end anytime soon.