California's Periods of Rain are Becoming More Focused

These folks are from the successor department that incorporated my old department at the University of Arizona. Apparently California precipitation is occurring in shorter bursts, and that the trend started some time ago.:

The researchers also found that precipitation variability is decreasing in the northern part of California in the fall. "That's where you get most of the water resources and also that's where you have a lot of the forested areas," Zamora-Reyes said. 

"We're also seeing that less of these really wet events are coming in the fall, and instead we're getting most of the precipitation concentrated in winter. We're seeing this pattern across California. If you look statewide, you see the same trend in both precipitation and stream flow."

...Zamora-Reyes was surprised by the team's results.

"I was expecting to see an increase in variability over the last 20 years at most," she said, "but we've been seeing a steady increase for much longer. People are noticing. I've talked to strangers about my research, and they say they've noticed what I'm talking about. It's been interesting and eye-opening to see my research play out in real time."