Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Warm And Dry November Ends

Warm and dry aren't two words normally associated with the month of November.

However, November 1999 was both.

According to local meteorologist John Teeter the area received less than an inch of rain during the 11th month of the year.

The normal amount of rainfall for November is 4.43 inches, Teeter said, but only 0.78 inches fell during the month.

This left a shortfall of 3.65 inches just for November.

For the year, he said, the region is 1.58 inches below normal in rainfall. The norm for the first 11 months of the year is 45.89 inches, with 44.31 inches having fallen.

The problem is most of the rain fell during the early part of 1999, and from June until now has been horrendously dry.

Davis Benton, the Cale weatherman said the south part of Nevada County was even drier as only 0.49 inches of rain fell in November.

This has been the driest November in the last 20 years, Benton said, adding the rainfall total for the summer until now has only been 9.94 inches.

In the Cale area, he continued, the rainfall deficit is about 20 inches.

Teeter said it only rained four days in November with the largest single amount in one day being 0.34 inches on Nov. 29.

Still, as dry as last month was, he said, it wasn't a record. The lowest November rainfall total occurred in 1903 when a scant 0.05 of an inch hit the earth.

On the flip side, the wettest November for Nevada County, Teeter said, was in 1988 when 13.9 inches drenched the area.

"The most unusual feature of November 1999," he said, "was the 18 consecutive days of no rainfall."

Again, though, this is not a record. Teeter said the record occurred in 1930 when it didn't rain at all for six weeks after June 15.

This event, however, was the beginning of the infamous "Dust Bowl" period in America's history.

This drought, he said, lasted until 1936, with the people living through it learning the meaning of "hard times."

In the area of temperature, as November was exceedingly warm, Benton said the high in Cale reached 82 degrees, while the lowest temperature recorded was 30.

Teeter's records show the low in the Prescott area to be 31, on Nov. 3 and 4, while the mercury climbed to a balmy 80 on Nov. 15.

Overall, the temperature reached 70 or more on 19 different days during the month.

The mean temperature for November, Teeter said, was 56-4 degrees.

Looking at the final month of the decade, and some say century, the normal amount of rainfall for December, Teeter said, is 4.60 inches, while the average daily temperature is 45.2 degrees.

So far, the month has started off warmer and with a bit of rain.