[Updated: Mon., Nov. 17, 2025, 5:30pm]
What started on Thursday as days of manageable, if relentless, rainfall has now made this the wettest start to a water year in the City of Santa Barbara in 127 years. As City Councilmember Oscar Gutierrez put it on Saturday night, the record-setting rain turned State Street into “State River.”
“Countywide, we’re at about 460 percent of normal-to-date rainfall and 44 percent of the normal annual total — and it’s only mid-November,” said Shawn Johnson, senior hydrologist with the county’s Flood Control District. A water year, which follows the natural precipitation cycle instead of a calendar year, runs from October 1 to September 30 in California .
