Bay Area's rainy season was among driest starts. Here's how things stand

It's been a very active rainy season across parts of the Bay Area, but it didn't start out that way.

In fact, October was among the top driest months on records for many locations across the Bay Area. However, the weather whiplash quickly arrived in November when an extremely strong atmospheric river brought over a foot of rain to parts of the North Bay.

This system was very stark, bringing only the northern half of the Bay Area significant rainfall – While San Francisco was still slightly above normal for the month, San Jose was below normal. The huge disparity in rain during the month of November is a big reason the South Bay still has not caught up on rainfall. 

The trend remains the same across the Bay for the rest of the season: above average in December, very dry in January to kick off the year, and a very wet start to the month of February.  

February isn't even over, yet numbers are above average for the entire month. Even though this was San Jose's, and San Francisco's, wettest month so far this season, it was not enough to get that back to normal rainfall for this time of year.

Parts of the Santa Clara Valley and inland East Bay communities are under abnormally dry conditions right now because of the rainfall deficiency. 

Across the entire state, it's easy to see that start line cutting California in half, directly across the Bay, by looking at rainfall anomaly since Oct. 1. Unfortunately, with the below-average rainfall in southern California, many locations are under extreme drought.

Dry conditions are likely going to stick around for the rest of the month, so it likely won't add more to these rainfall totals until next month.