Santa Clara County remains in a drought like the rest of California despite recent rains. Over the last 10 days, the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s precipitation gauge at Castro Valley Ranch has recorded 2.84 inches while the Morgan Hill gauge collected 1.69 inches and the City of San Jose gauge gathered 1.26 inches.
Elsewhere in the county Lexington Reservoir’s precipitation gauge recorded 2.48 inches while Palo Alto received 1.61 inches. As shown on the chart, the season totals for local rain remain well below the rain received the last two years, both of which were dry years. Most areas of the county have only received 30-40% of typical annual rainfall. Just over half of Santa Clara County’s water is imported from other parts of the state, primarily from reservoirs fed by snowmelt. California’s snowpack is at just 32% of the average for April 1 as measured earlier this week. San Luis Reservoir is holding 47% of its historical average for this time of year while Lake Shasta is at 61% and Lake Oroville is at 65% of their historical averages.
