Mar 28, 2013 9:07 PM by Keli Moore, KSBY News
Since the beginning of 2013, the Central Coast is six to eight inches behind on rainfall. The region has seen a lot of storms, but they aren't producing much rain.
The hillsides look green when we drive around, and we often see signs of Spring. On Thursday, there were even a few rain drops that fell across the Central Coast, but looks can be deceiving.
"There isn't going to be enough water in the land here to keep these plants alive long because we just haven't had any rain this year," explained Dave Hovde, KSBY's Chief Meteorologist.
Hovde said there's virtually no chance of us reaching a normal rainfall for the year. In fact, he said historically, this is in the top ten driest two year periods that we've seen since the 1950s.
"It's a huge problem, in back to back years we have seen half the amount of rainfall we typically see and the problems with that end of being cumulative," said Hovde.
Cal Fire said wildfire season could come as early as April.
"It's going to be difficult to manage certain kinds of crops in the area, so it has a toll and not just environmentally, but literally it's going to be a toll that we pay out of our pockets. It is going to cost money to manage the drought," said Hovde.
He said reservoirs are a buffer for the region's water needs, but two years in a row with not much rain can be bad news.
So why is this happening? Hovde said we had a weak El Nino this year. He explained that almost all of the systems went to the north, and there wasn't even much snow in California's mountain ranges.
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