SACRAMENTO, Calif. — There's something many people on social media and even in the ABC10 newsroom have been asking: Why does it always rain on the weekends?
Always might be a bit of an exaggeration, but is it actually? Here's how the numbers worked out.
Talking specifically about Downtown Sacramento, from the start of the calendar year through to this weekend, 10 out of 18 weekends have had at least one day with rain. That's 56% of weekends — more than half — with at least some rain.
Compared to last year, from the start of calendar year 2023 through the first weekend of May, nine of 19 weekends saw at least one day of rain. At 47%, that's pretty similar.
Here's where the big difference between 2024 and 2023 is: springtime rain.
Some might say it's supposed to rain in January, February, and March because it's the area's wet season. And that's true. Looking at weekends this year after the spring equinox, four out of seven, 57%, have had rain.
Compare that to spring 2023 where only one out of seven weekends, 14%, had rain.
Even though 2023 was wetter than 2024, the rain largely ended by late March. The dry weather began at the same time many of us expect (whether correctly or not) to be drier. As a result, outdoor activities and kids sports largely went off without much fuss last spring.
In 2024, the Sacramento area continued to see the wet-then-dry pattern flip-flops all the way through April and into the start of May. So the perception of it being wetter on weekends this year is actually true.
It rained on half of the weekends so far this year. But is there any science to it happening on a weekend and not, say, every Tuesday? No. It's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. We just care more that it's happening on a Saturday or Sunday than we do when we're in the office on a random Tuesday.
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