KTLA

Southern California’s wet winter: Look up seasonal rainfall totals for your area

A pedestrian walks with an umbrella as motorists drive through rain along the 110 Freeway in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles, Friday, March 10, 2023. Evacuations were ordered Friday in Northern California after a new atmospheric river brought heavy rain, thunderstorms and strong winds, swelling rivers and creeks and flooding several major highways during the morning commute. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

If you, like many Southern Californians, are wondering exactly how much rain you have received in your neighborhood throughout this extraordinarily wet winter, there is a way.

The Ventura County Public Works Agency has an interactive map showing season-to-date rainfall totals for dozens of locations throughout metropolitan Los Angeles, including the City of L.A., Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, and sections of Riverside, San Bernardino, and Orange counties.

Season-to-date rain totals map. (Ventura County Public Works).

Including the latest storm to hit the region this week, rain totals since the start of the water year on Oct. 1, 2022, have exceeded two feet in many locations. Some cities have even received over three feet of rainfall.

Season-to-date rainfall totals (Courtesy: Ventura County Public Works):

On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Water District, which serves 26 public water agencies in Southern California, lifted emergency restrictions that were enacted in June 2022 to manage a severe water shortage related to the yearslong drought.

“We haven’t had rain like this for many years,” Jeff Pratt, the Director of Ventura County Public Works, told KTLA. “We’ve had saturated soil since early January. The ground is like a sponge and since that sponge has been full, a lot of this rain has been flowing right into our watershed.”

Pratt, who also serves as Executive Officer with the Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency, says this water year is exactly what water districts across Southern California were hoping for.

“Our reservoirs are filling up, and our groundwater aquifers are recharging,” Pratt told us.