Weather Report on Last Week’s Storms

The wet and wild spring weather continued in earnest this past week with two separate rainmakers slamming into the South Coast. The first system, which rolled in late Tuesday night and brought with it thunder and lightning and occasional hail, raged through the morning commute on Wednesday. All told, more than one-and-a-half inches of rain fell in downtown Santa Barbara with some parts of the foothills getting upward of two inches.

The second storm showed up Thursday night, just in time to make things a bit messy for the Santa Barbara Bowl’s season-opening show, but, despite bringing showers off and on throughout the night and for much of the day on Friday the 13th, the system provided roughly half the amount of rain as its predecessor. (All told, over the days of storming, 2.24 inches of rain fell in S.B. with more than three inches falling on Figueora Mountain).

Thanks to the late-season surge in rain-making storm systems, Santa Barbara County, according to the folks from the County’s Public Works Division, is now at 68 percent of its average annual rainfall total.