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Describe this month? Wet Soggy November came close to 1944's rainfall record Photo by Jim Craven A gate sits partly submerged in a sodden pasture along Highway 140 east of White City. The Rogue Valley has experienced one of its wettest Novembers -- only eight days this month without precipitation. By BILL KETTLER J ust plain wet. There's not much else to say about November 1998. With one day left before it slides into the history books, this November has earned a place in Medford's weather annals. Weekend storms brought the total precipitation for the month to 7.30 inches by 7 p.m. Sunday, making this the second wettest November since the National Weather Service began collecting information in 1911. Weather watchers in wetter parts of Jackson County measured more than 12 inches. Medford's wettest November came in 1944, when the rain gauge collected 8.62 inches. Medford's average November rainfall (measured at the airport -- one of the driest places in the valley) is 3.23 inches. Today's forecast calls for rain turning to scattered showers, with the snow level hovering around 3,500 feet. More soggy days are coming, if state climatologist George Taylor's winter forecast holds as true in December as it did in November. Back in August, Taylor predicted wetter-than-normal weather this winter as last year's El Nino yielded to colder, wetter conditions. "There's no reason to think December won't be pretty wet," he said, and snowpack in the high elevations of the Cascades also is likely to be far above normal. Taylor said conditions that develop after a waning El Nino often draw vast amounts of moisture from the western Pacific Ocean into winter storms that batter the Northwest. Heavy rains originating in the western Pacific produced flooding in many parts of Oregon in February and November 1996 and in the Rogue Valley on Jan. 1, 1997. Although the storms are often called the "Pineapple express" because they pass over Hawaii, Taylor said that name is a misnomer. The moisture comes from much farther west, around the Philippines and Indonesia. Taylor said there could be flooding again this winter, if cold weather allows a heavy snowpack to develop at low elevations and warm rains wash the snow downhill in a hurry. "There's certain ingredients you need (for a flood)," he said, "just like baking a cake." Taylor said one ingredient in the "recipe for a flood" already is in the pan. Soils have been saturated by November's heavy rains, and runoff from new storms could push streams out of their banks. Rogue Valley soils were soaked late in the month after a series of storms that began on Nov. 21 dropped more than 4 inches of rain in Medford in just three days. But the month had more than its share of gray and gloomy days. There were just eight days without measurable rainfall, four of them clustered in the first half of the month (Nov. 11-14). As wet as this November felt, there have been wetter months. More than 12 inches of rain fell on Medford in December 1964, when flooding washed out roads and bridges from Shady Cove to Grants Pass. And December 1996 (which ended in floods on Jan. 1, 1997) brought Medford 9 inches of rain. If all this has you feeling moldy, consider the folks who live on the Oregon coast. Coastal residents typically receive three to four times the amount of rain that falls in Medford. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA