Heavy rains expected over the weekend in Merced

Rain, and possibly a lot of rain, is expected this weekend in Merced.

That’s good news for a drought-stricken area coming off a drier-than-expected February.

“We had a good amount of rain in January in Merced, but February kind of dried out,” said Jim Andersen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford. “So, to have the first week of March start out strong is definitely a good sign.”

As much as 1.5 inches of rain could fall Saturday night, with scattered showers possible on Friday and again Sunday and Monday.

February saw just 0.4 inches of rainfall in Merced, down from 1.05 inches in 2015.

“With the numbers we saw in January, though, we’re still doing a lot better this year than last,” Andersen said.

Nearly 4.5 inches of rain fell in January, compared to just trace amounts a year earlier.

Forecasters remain hopeful that El Niño-fueled storms could make a significant dent in the state drought that is now in its fifth year.

“It took four years to get us into this and it’ll take awhile to get out of it,” Andersen said. “Frankly, we wouldn’t want it to come all at once because that would lead to flooding and major damage.”

The wish for rain may get answered this weekend, when forecasts call for a strong storm to bring rain and snow throughout California.

Residents had hoped there would be more such forecasts throughout the winter and that by now El Niño-fueled storms would have drenched California with enough water to put a major dent in the drought.

But so far, the periodic ocean-warming phenomenon has left much of the state in the dust, delivering a few quick storms but not yet bringing the legendary rain linked to past El Niños.

Rain and snowfall in the weeks ahead would have to be extensive to make up lost ground and ease the drought – even with the current forecast of a series of early March storms heading directly toward California.

Scientists say a dome of high pressure has kept the El Niño storm track well to the north, helping build vital snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada and elsewhere in West but leaving the southern half of the Golden State mostly hot and very dry.

The lack of rain has made it easy to think of El Niño as having come and gone.

Skiers celebrated a long-awaited coating of snow in Southern California’s mountains earlier this year but have since watched it melt away.

“Temporarily closed. Waiting for new snow,” the Mountain High ski resort northeast of Los Angeles posted Sunday on Facebook, two days after Mount Waterman to the west stopped running its lifts.

The wait for fresh snow may not be long, however.

“We could see 2 to 4 feet of snow at the highest elevations of the Sierra Nevada and that’s our water bank,” Andersen said. “That would really help us start picking away at this deficit. A small dent is better than nothing.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published March 3, 2016 at 6:27 PM with the headline "Heavy rains expected over the weekend in Merced."