On Fri, 14 Oct 2005, Mark Bennett wrote:
> However, a graph of the yearly rainfall totals since record keeping began
> in 1850 indicates that such dry/wet cycles are fairly common. Not the
> strongest evidence for the apocalypse . . .
Well, this was mainly joke about time-honored truths. But if you want to be serious, NWS records began in 1881 for Los Angeles, and the only time they recorded more was 1883:
http://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we13.htm
So it's not common. It's definately an outlier. (The next nearest after those two is more than inches closer to the average). That doesn't mean it couldn't be part of the normal variation, just like all the other outliers. But it's definately one more for the set.
Michael