No other weather event this year has come close to dropping so much rain on Fresno. With this rain event, we are saved from going anywhere near matching the very bad rain season of 1975-76. A deceptively large 4 inches total for the year fell that season. Most of that 4 inches came in the form of a very wet and warm (downright hot and humid) monsoon wind from the desert (and I think some remnants of Pacific Ocean hurricanes) that blew into California in August and September. In fact, such warm September/August rains happened in 1975 as well. The problem with those warm end-of-summer rains (which famously ruin the entire raisin harvest) is it totally evaporates or runs off right away. In otherwords, they count for little. California relies on winter storms from the North Pacific Ocean as they give snow to the high country and soaking rains to the low country that takes a long time to evaporate in the colder fall, winter and early spring periods. Without rain arriving in that time frame, California has a drought.
The three storms over the weekend were good to central California, but only the inland area. They failed to reach northern California, which has been missed by virtually every storm this year, and bypassed the coast ranges. The coast ranges were unable to wring much moisture from out of the passing clouds; only the mighty Sierra Nevada was able to get anything to come out of the clouds. That mountain uplift effect benefited the eastern San Joaquin Valley floor as well.
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