2019 weather: wet, wet and more wet

IF YOU DIDN’T know any better, you would think these two images — captured only a couple miles apart south of Tracy — were taken at about the same time. However, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The photo on the left was taken after a nasty ice storm in mid-April, while the image on the right was taken just last week. Photos / Tracy Area Headlight Herald file photo (above), April DeSchepper (below)

Local farmers can take their pick of which month to blame for such a wet 2019, and late planting and harvest season. But if they want to focus their ire on one four-week period in particular, they need look no further than the shortest month of the year.

February 2019 brought a Tracy record 34.72” of snow to go on top of the nearly 20 inches that fell in January. And don’t forget, all that moisture came after a very soggy 2018 that saw nearly 50” of precipitation in Tracy.

Indeed, the winter of 2019 was another wet one. From October to April, Tracy received nearly 90” of precipitation — most, of course, coming in the form of snow, and some of that was of the very wet variety (17.4” in April, a month not normally associated with snowfall that also brought with it an ice storm that toppled numerous power lines in the area).

See this week’s Headlight Herald for more on this article.