Excerpt:
“Just three weeks ago, the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center raised the odds of California getting doused with a wetter-than-average winter. Southern California now has more than a 60% chance of a wet winter, a 33% chance of a normal winter and less than a 7% chance of a dry winter.
...Patzert said Southern California and the rest of the southern U.S., all the way to Florida, can expect a very wet winter, while it should be relatively mild in the upper part of the United States, including New England, a dramatic contrast to the intense snowfall Boston received last winter.
But Patzert issued a note of warning to Californians: Don’t think this El Niño spells the end of this state’s punishing four-year drought.
The last record El Niño that ended in 1998 was quickly followed by the arrival of El Niño’s dry sister, La Niña.
“Thinking ahead one year, could we be whiplashed from deluge back to drought again?” Patzert said. “Because remember, La Niña is the diva of drought.”
Patzert said that in the last 140 years in California, seven out of every 10 years are dry, so it would be foolish to declare an end to water conservation during this winter’s rains."
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-massive-el-nino-is-now-too-big-to-fail-scientist-says-20151009-story.html
4 comments:
I can't help wondering when they reach the limit on people in CA if it's that dry.
PS During the Civil War, CA had a similar drought followed by a torrential El Niño for several years.
You get the feeling god is trying to tell them something.
Oh, God is a pretty pissed off God right now. He's watching this particular creation in this part of the universe kind of screw shit up.
It also means a dry Pacific Northwest, and probably N CA also. Droughts tend to shift from south to north with El Nino.
There is a greater probability of having a drier than average year than a wetter than average year. Another way to put it is, you should expect a normal (average) rainfall only once in about 3 years, the other 2 being less than average. The 7 of 10 year comment was stupid, especially for a climatologist.
John, it's a pretty stupid article. They make the headline scary, but when you look at the graph comparing '96-'97(?) to the current year, there is a big disparity...and this is the LA Times!
Anyway, I hope they're correct about a mild winter in the NE. I'm a snow wimp.
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