Each evening I record weather numbers and observations, along with what I’ve planted and how my vegetables and fruit trees are performing. I’ve done this for ten years straight (off and on for twenty). Occasionally, it feels like a waste of time, but at moments like these it doesn’t.

We are three months into our rainy season in Southern California and yet it hasn’t rained. Not once.

The ground surface has looked wet a few times due to light sprinkles, but there have been zero “significant” rains, rains of a half inch or more. Such a rain is significant because that’s about how much is needed to percolate into the dirt and reach the roots of plants. Anything less is of almost no use.

So October, November, December have passed us by in 2024 and they’ve been dry. On average, we get around 0.5 inches of rain in October, 1.25 inches in November, and 1.75 inches in December, for a total of about 3.5 inches for those first three months of our rainy season. (These are rough averages for the parts of Southern California where most of us live.) But in 2024, only insignificant sprinkles. Not even one inch.

When is the last time a fall was as dry as 2024?

2024 like 2017

Here is where I appreciate my personal weather records. It was in 2017 that we last had a fall so dry.

The fall of 2017 had no significant rain in October, November, or December. It finally rained on January 8, 2018. At the time, the National Weather Service called this the “longest dry spell on record” for our region because there had also been no summer thunderstorms that year, plus the previous spring had been dry. In 2017, it rained on February 27 and then nothing all the way until January 9, 2018. That’s almost an entire year without rain.

How does this compare to 2024? When was our last rain this calendar year? It was on March 31, and it rained 2.4 inches on just that day at my place. So no records have been broken yet.

Looking forward

No one has any idea how wet or dry the rest of this year’s rainy season will be, despite the predictions of some which have the appearance of special knowledge. (See my post, “The accuracy of weather and climate forecasts.”)

January 2025 could bring little rain or lots of rain. We’ll have to wait and see.

One thing we do know is that our wettest months on average are January, February, and March. Therefore, that’s when we can have higher expectations for rain.

2018 rain

What if this coming January 2025 turns out like January 2018? How was that? And how was the rest of 2018, after the dry fall of 2017?

The rainy season of 2017/2018 continued on the dry side all the way through winter. After it finally rained on January 8, 2018, it didn’t rain again until the end of February. March had only two significant rains, the last being on March 15. April and onward was dry.

Overall, the 2017/2018 rainy season totaled 6.2 inches at my place whereas the average is around 16 inches.

2018 plant performances

Through that dry winter of 2017/2018, how did plants perform? My vegetables did fine, but my fruit trees were hit and miss.

Coinciding with the lack of winter storms was lack of chilly days and nights. This is good for some plants.

However, certain fruit trees needed chill during that fall and winter in order to flower and fruit properly the following spring and summer. They performed poorly.

I wrote about these phenomena in my post from April 2018, “Effects of a warm and wacky winter on deciduous fruit trees.”

Diversifying your food garden plantings is wise, as it ensures that you have some success every year, no matter the weather. Recall that two winters ago was exceptionally wet and cold. (See my post, “Why diversify your food garden?”)

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