Santa Barbara County gets a day of sunshine before clouds return
A visitor to Stearns Wharf enjoys some time under a sunny sky.
The sun shined Friday on a reopened Stearns Wharf, surfers enjoying the big waves and something that was needed during the drought: more rainfall for local reservoirs.
That was the scene in Santa Barbara County during a respite from rainfall, which isn’t expected to resume until Sunday.
Friday was sunny, but the National Weather Service said today will be mostly cloudy.
The heaviest rainfall came during Wednesday’s night storm, which damaged the building that will house a future restaurant at Goleta Beach. Goleta Beach Park remained closed when the News-Press stopped by the site on Friday.
The aftermath of the storm included tall waves Thursday, some of them higher than the Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara and the Goleta Pier. Officials closed both piers, but Stearns Wharf reopened on Friday.
“The Santa Barbara Waterfront and Harbor were hit hard by the combination of large swell and high tides overnight and this morning,” said Shelly Cone, public information officer for the city of Santa Barbara. “There was localized coastal flooding and storm surge that impacted waterfront parking lots, beaches, the harbor and Stearns Wharf.”
The city of Santa Barbara started cleanup efforts Friday afternoon as the tide receded. Workers cleaned up sand and debris throughout the waterfront and Sanat Barbara Harbor.
Ms. Cone said the risk of rogue waves and coastal flooding remained on Friday.
Clearly one sign of the storm’s impact was seen at Lake Cachuma, which benefited from a total of 5 inches of rainfall over a seven-day period ending Friday, according to the Santa Barbara County Flood District.
For the same seven-day period, Gibraltar Reservoir experienced 7.84 inches of rain.
During that seven-day period, rainfall totaled 2.5 inches in Buellton, 3.55 inches in Carpinteria, 1.3 inches in Cuyama, 3.09 inches on the Gaviota Coast, 3.35 inches in Goleta, 4.63 inches in Santa Barbara, 2.74 inches in Santa Maria, 4.09 inches in Solvang, 4.46 inches in Summerland, 2.68 inches at UCSB and 7.38 inches at the Alisal Reservoir.
The U.S. Drought Monitor, which releases data every Thursday, showed improvement for Santa Barbara County, which went from “extreme to exceptional drought” to “severe drought” after Wednesday’s storm. In this case, “severe drought” is defined as being less severe than “extreme drought.”
The National Weather Service predicted rain will fall again on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Meanwhile, the weather service said Santa Barbara County residents can expect highs in the upper 50s to lower 60s and lows in the lower and middle 40s.
Keep your jacket handy, along with, next week, your umbrella.
email: dmason@newspress.com
