(I actually missed these in my original napkin math, but they make my argument even better, so...)
My point was that if in the original data set, the only way that you get those favorable numbers is if you start at the present and arbitrarily go back until you hit a very high number. Any other averaging of rainfall from the present to a year in the last 20 years looks absolutely horrendous.
http://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we13.htm
You can add the following values (from http://ggweather.com/ca2013rain.htm and similar URLS): 2012-2013: 5.85 2013-2014: 6.08
(I actually missed these in my original napkin math, but they make my argument even better, so...)
My point was that if in the original data set, the only way that you get those favorable numbers is if you start at the present and arbitrarily go back until you hit a very high number. Any other averaging of rainfall from the present to a year in the last 20 years looks absolutely horrendous.