Ask anyone around Santa Maria when the last time it rained was, and they likely won’t remember. That all changed on Halloween night.
The storm brought anywhere between a half inch in Buellton to almost 1.5 inches in Santa Maria.
The rain may have been needed, but also caused some minor problems throughout the county. In Santa Maria, the fire department responded to a partially collapsed roof at the North American Fire Hose Company warehouse on East Noble Avenue, although the exact cause of the collapse hasn’t been determined. Several employees evacuated, but no injuries were reported. Some parts of Goleta experienced flooding.
Area farmers welcomed the rain, including cattlemen who rely on green grass for livestock and have been adjusting to the ever-decreasing amount of water coming from the sky. The rain helped some irrigation systems, while at the same time caused partial runoff in some spots.
“Any rainfall is a welcome gift for sure, but it came down a little bit too fast,” said Paul van Leer, president of the Santa Barbara County Farm Bureau.
California is currently in its third year of the worst drought on record for the state, with this year being the driest. Last year (from September 2013 to August 2014), Santa Barbara County received less than a total of 5 inches, according to figures compiled by the county’s Flood Control District. It hasn’t rained this much since last April, when the county accumulated almost an inch of rain throughout the month (0.92 inches to be exact).
Some farmers have to make a choice of directing water to younger, higher-yield crop plants while cutting off the flow to older ones, van Leer said. The rain is a short-term fix for farmers in the face of a drought that is showing no signs of ending soon.
“We need another rain in a couple of weeks,” van Leer said, “but in the long range forecast, it doesn’t look like there will be.”
This article appears in Nov 6-13, 2014.