By Reginald Stanley. Posted March 3, 2014, 9:16 AM.![]() A major Pacific storm produced heavy rain, thunderstorms, wind and flooding throughout the region Friday and Saturday, with residual showers still lingering Sunday morning. The storm brought the first significant widespread rainfall of the entire 2013-14 rain season, ending what was an exceptionally dry winter up to this point. Precipitation totals ranged from 1.35 inches in Riverside's Presidential Park to an astonishing 5.79 inches in Northwest Murrieta. Throughout much of Southern California, more rain fell in the last five days than during the entire year of 2013. The eastern valleys, for the most part, saw the lowest rain totals, with one notable exception being east San Jacinto where a grand total of 3.42 inches was reported by Monty Parrott. The Temecula Valley and Santa Ana foothills saw the highest totals, as well as Cherry Valley. Most totals were between 2 and 4 inches for the three-day period ending Sunday. Rainfall was particularly heaviest on Friday and 28th, with Murrieta recording 4.02 inches on that day alone. On Saturday, thunderstorms formed as the center of the low moved directly over California. Other notable storm totals include 4.91 inches in Southeast Wildomar (courtesy of Reginald Stanley), 3.64 inches in East Highland (courtesy of Peter Michas), 3.57 in Temecula Valley's Wine Country (courtesy of Jim Sappington), and 3.51 in Southeast Temecula (courtesy of Jim Purpura). Rain total for Wildomar is incomplete due to a malfunctioning rain gauge. French Valley totals were corrected using a backup manual rain gauge on-site. The storm was the wettest storm overall in the region since December 2010. The heavy rains produced local flooding, as most areas have not seen this kind of rain in over three years. Prior to the storm, most locations had only seen about 25 percent of normal rainfall or less up to this point in the season. Despite the wet weather, the region would still need at least several more storms of this magnitude this Spring to erase the large rain deficit for the year. The stubborn high pressure ridge that was keeping us dry most of this winter is forecast to rebuild over the next couple of days, with no rain in sight for now. Here are the rain totals for the WeatherCurrents network and associates:
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