California Is Sitting on the Solution to Its Drought Problem

Re:California Is Sitting on the Solution to Its Drought Problem by Tloewald on Thursday June 18, 2015 @10:15AM (#9738612)

Even without the 38" year the average rainfall still makes the argument work; quoting a 4" deficit and singling out the highest year is disingenuous. The lowest year was also an outlier.

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Re:California Is Sitting on the Solution to Its Drought Problem by airza on Thursday June 18, 2015 @04:33PM (#9741459)

Here is the data that I used, the author's is something rather similar:

http://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we13.htm

You can add the following values (from http://ggweather.com/ca2013rain.htm and similar URLS): 2012-2013: 5.85 2013-2014: 6.08

(I actually missed these in my original napkin math, but they make my argument even better, so...)

My point was that if in the original data set, the only way that you get those favorable numbers is if you start at the present and arbitrarily go back until you hit a very high number. Any other averaging of rainfall from the present to a year in the last 20 years looks absolutely horrendous.

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