(Photo by TechPhotoGal via Pixabay)
The wettest Christmas ever recorded in the Bay Area was in Marin County in 1983, with Sonoma County reporting the next largest Christmas rain about 40 years earlier. 

Meteorologists recorded 3.18 inches of rain in Kentfield in Marin County on Christmas Day in 1983, according to the National Weather Service. In Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, 2.72 inches of rain fell on Dec. 25, 1940. San Francisco reported the third highest amount on Christmas Day in 1852. 

Here’s how the counties rank by the greatest amount of rainfall historically on Christmas Day. 1. Marin County — 3.18 inches in 19832. Sonoma County — 2.72 inches in 19403. San Francisco — 2.54 inches in 18524. Solano County — 2.00 inches in 19835. Contra Costa County — 1.74 in 19796. Napa County — 1.65 inches in 19407. San Mateo County — 1.23 inches in 19688. Alameda County — 0.94 in 19719. Santa Clara County — 0.69 in 1971While it was really wet in San Francisco on Christmas in 1852, Pier 39 employee and San Francisco resident Karen Jew doesn’t associate Christmas in the city with rain. 

She said her family has a tradition of going for a bike ride or a hike on Christmas Day, but she associates rain with New Year’s Day. 

Before San Francisco’s fireworks on New Year’s Eve, “We always tell people to be prepared for rain,” Jew said. 

Source: National Weather Service

Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.