Water year 2006 in Northern California: Wet with a holiday season “monsoon”

Abstract

Water year 2006 (October 2005 through September 2006) turned out to be one of the wetter years in northern California. Based on preliminary data, the Sacramento River basin was the 6th wettest water year of record, from 1906, and for the San Joaquin River it was 9th wettest of a record which begins in 1901. For both systems the April through July runoff was 7th largest, making 2 years in a row with excellent snow melt runoff. It was also a year of significant flooding, the first since 1998. A major flood occurred at the end of the calendar year during the New Year holiday. This paper provides a description of water year 2006 and some of its significant events.