It was a year of plenty for parched California. State figures released at the end of the water year, which resets each Oct. 1, tell the story: The northern Sierra Nevada had its wettest year, 95 inches of precipitation, since record-keeping began in 1895. IN the central Sierra, it was the wettest in more than three decades. The rain at times overwhelmed the state’s water infrastructure, terrifyingly so in Orville.