Goldilocks doesn't quite deliver
Only 7-8 inches last night in the Cottonwoods. Not quite enough for a true Goldilocks day. It will, however, freshen things up even if the porridge is a little too cold.
America's Rainiest City?
Ketchikan, Alaska is known for two things: salmon and rain. I know this well as I have been here several times visiting family. The combination of wind and rain often makes it feel like you are living in a car wash. Ketchikan, which is located on the inland passage in southeast Alaska, has fully embraced it's status at the Rain City . It proudly displays a "liquid sunshine gauge" on the boat dock showing just how wet it is. A closeup shows that they claim an average rainfall of 12.5 ft (150") per year. That's a lot of rain and, perhaps not surprisingly, Ketchikan is widely promoted as the rainiest city in America (e.g., destimationalaska.com ). Being a meteorologist, I began to wonder if this was really the case. There are the usual challenges in evaluating such a claim. What is meant by a city? What is the period of record? Is the data reliable? Etc... For the purposes of this post, we'll concentrate on clima...
Its interesting how the orographics differed with this frontal system. In the Sierra, the west slope areas (east of Sacramento) received around 2.5" or more of rain/water equivalent at the 4-5k foot level, while Sacramento itself had only about 0.1". Here in the Wasatch, the valley and mountain totals were fairly similar.
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