The storm came, and now it has gone, mostly. It was advertised as the marriage of a Gulf of Alaska storm and some typhoon remnants. Watching the rain pour down here, and seeing the totals mount on the National Weather Service statistics pages, I believe the typhoon part. It was the heaviest mid-October rain for most locations since 1962, when the World Series–Giants and Yankees, at the still-new Candlestick Park–was washed out by rain.
Some of the more amazing 24-hour totals, midnight Monday to midnight Tuesday: Mount Umunhum in the Santa Cruz Mountains, 13.07 inches. Ben Lomond, Santa Cruz Mountains: 10.58 inches. Mining Ridge, a remote recording station at an elevation of 4760 feet in the Santa Lucia range above Big Sur: 20 inches even. The totals of 5-plus inches at lowland locales in the central Bay Area seem semi-arid by comparison–even though they represent anywhere from 15 to 25 percent of what those locations get in an average rain year.
It’s not easy to get apples/apples numbers just casually browsing the Weather Service sites. But the service did publish a record report for 24-hour rainfall (the standard here is from 5 p.m. to 5 p.m., I think).
| Location | New Record | Old Record |
| Kentfield | 6.14 | 4.20, set in 1957 |
| Oakland Museum | 3.86 | 0.37, set in 1988 |
| Richmond | 3.38 | 2.47, set in 1962 |
| San Francisco Airport | 2.64 | 2.62, set in 1962 |
| San Francisco Downtown | 2.49* | 1.80, set in 1962 |
| Santa Rosa | 2.74 (tied) | 2.74, set in 1962 |
| King City | 1.65 | 0.30, set in 2007 |
| Monterey Climate Station | 2.66* | 1.14, set in 1962 |
| Salinas | 1.05 | 0.39, set in 1992 |
| Santa Cruz | 3.16* | 2.49, set in 1957 |
*New unofficial record for 24-hour rainfall in October.
For several days before yesterday’s storm, the Weather Service office in Monterey was highlighting some of the highest October rainfall totals for stations in its forecast area. Here they are:
| Location | One-Day Record | Two-Day Record |
| Santa Rosa | 4.67 (10/12/1962) | 7.41 (10/12-13/1962) |
| Napa | 4.66 (10/13/1962) | 9.32 (10/12-13/1962) |
| San Francisco Downtown | 2.29 (10/15/1969) | 3.72 (10/12-13/1962) |
| San Francisco Airport | 2.62 (10/13/1962) | 4.56 (10/12-13/1962) |
| Oakland Airport | 4.53 (10/13/1962) | 5.85 (10/12-13/1962) |
| Livermore | 2.17 (10/13/1962) | 3.45 (10/13-14/1962) |
| San Jose | 3.22 (10/13/1962) | 4.56 (10/12-13/1962) |
| Santa Cruz | 3.15 (10/20/1899) | 3.35 (10/20-21/1899) |
| Monterey | 1.80 (10/26/1907) | 2.09 (10/26-27/1907) |
| Salinas | 1.50 (10/30/1982) | 1.50 (10/30-31/1982) |
| King City | 1.88 (10/29/1996) | 2.18 (10/29-30/1996) |
Source: National Weather Service, Monterey, California
Good stuff. Reminds me of what I believe is the biggest single-day rainfall in SF ever: just over 6 inches in early November 1994, if memory serves. Remember that? We were walking picket lines that day!