The San Francisco call., 1896-01-10
Why, It's About the Driest
Rainy Season on Record
to Date.
a NEVADA HIGH" Is TO BLAME.
Interesting Weather Figures and
Philosophy That Don't Tell How
Much Rain Well Get.

Yesterday was the eighteenth rainless
day and the sun went down on as bright
and soft O California winter day as ever
promised warm and sunny morrow.
The entire State is interested in the
question, When will 1t rain? The City
folks want more of these glorious days
that lure to the parks, hills and highways.
The farmers in the interior valleys are
generally nearly at the point of praying
for rain that they can plow and Shat
seeds may sprout and wheat may grow.
The orchardists are not in hurry for rain
and warm weather in fear that the fruit
trees will bloom too early and suffer from
frcsts. There are all sorts of individual
and class wishes about the rain coming
right away, bat the fact is generally recog-
nized throughout the State that good,
widespread rain is at the point of being
badly needed.
Forecast Official w. II. Harmon talked
weather a good deal yesterday, but he
didn't know what the rain record was 60
ing to be. So far this season we have had
Al inches of rain. while the seasonal aver
age on January 8 is about 10 inches. So
we are about 8 inches short to date. The
last rain that amounted to more than
trace occurred Decembe 81, when "a of
an inch fell. So far this season, Mr.. Ham
mon says, there have been two rains that
were general over the State. The most
rain has fallen in the upper Sacramento
Valley and the upper coast, where the sea-
sonal average has been nearly reached.
In December last there were nine rainy
days out of thirty-one, while in December,
1894, there were twenty-five rainy days, or
nine on which rain did not fall. Last wear
the rainfall to date was 1867 inches, and
during the first eight days of last January
three inches of rain fell during five days.
There have been but two seasons since
the beginning of the record when less rain
had fallen before January than this
season. In 1S76-77 4.01 inches had fallen
al this date, and in 1879-79 80 inches. In
1869 the record stood at 4.63, and in
1SS3-S4 it was 81 at this date. These are
the four seasons, dry in the early part,
corresponding closely with the present
one. This season, then, has so far been
one of the driest that San Francisco and
the central part of the State has known.
There is no reason" says Mr.. Ham
mon, that the rainfall should not be
normal from now on, and the chances are
that it will be. We are now six inches
behind the average, and the chances are
that we will come out six inches behind
The average rainfall is not the probable
rainfall for season, though. The proba-
bic rainfall is only about 20 inches-that
Is, there have been as many seasons in
which the rainfall has been less than 20
inches as there have been in which there
has been more. The average is raised by
seasons OF very excessive rains, as in 1889
80, when there was 42 inches"
There is a reason for this fine dry spell
cold fer while and then nice and warm
as many people may have ignorantly
suspected. Mr.. Harmon blames it
all on Nevada. 1t Isl the Sagebrush
State, which has no reason to do
California an injury, that has kept
away the blessed rains that nature
has been trying to get to us ever since
Christmas. The usual output of storms
has come TO the coast from the big storm
factory of the Pacific, but they have been
sheered off to the north by Nevada.
Our rains are all due to areas of low
pressure which float in to the northern
coast. draw currents from all directions to
the storm center, where the air is the
iightest, and cause precipitation. As these
lows" come in and travel across the
continent they are always stopped or
turned by highs" in which the air is
dense. So when a "low" comes in, the To-
cation of an impeding "high" will show
where it will or will not rain.
Ever since Christmas a big low has set