This Winter started off SO wet, and then… it just stopped. A couple of days after New Year’s, seasonal rain totals for many places in central California were close to 200% of normal – they had picked up twice their usual rainfall to that date! But since January 4th, we’ve only had one significant storm bring us rain… that one cold storm in the middle of February. Other than that one, it’s been 3 months of dry (and now hot) weather, and our seasonal rain totals have fallen back to near average for this deep into the season. Which is still far better than being below normal, but -it just feels like an opportunity lost, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n
We’re not done with rain just yet, but any additional rain likely won’t be that much. Our ‘big 4’ months of rain are December through March, where we average a little over 2″ of rain in Fresno per month. Rain totals in the other 8 months of the year are usually much less than that.<\/p>\n
However… maybe there’s hope for next Winter. Long range models are pointing towards it being an El Nino Winter, possibly a strong one! And strong El Nino’s always bring California loads of rain, right? It was a strong El Nino that brought us the huge storms of 1982-83, the wettest year ever in Fresno. And another strong El Nino made the Winter 1997-98 a VERY wet one. Fresno averages 11″ of rain per year, and has received over 20″ of rain in a season only 3 times: the strong El Nino of 1982-83, the strong El Nino of 1997-98, and the moderate El Nino of 1968-69. <\/p>\n
So, with a potentially moderate to strong El Nino on the way, we’d better start stocking up on sandbags soon, yes?<\/p>\n
No. Not yet, at least. Because 1982-83 and 1997-98 weren’t the only Winters where a strong El Nino occurred. There have been others – in 1991-92, a very strong El Nino developed, and California saw below normal rainfall – only 83% of our usual rainfall. And the powerful El Nino of 2015-16 was just as strong as the 1982-83 and 1997-98 ones, yet California ended up with only 105% of normal rainfall. Sure, that’s above average – barely. We saw 167% of usual rain across the state in 1997-98, and 177% of our normal rainfall in 1982-83. Now that’s some heavy rain! But just 5% above normal in 2015-16? That’s like this year… good, but far from great.<\/p>\n
So, what went wrong in 2015-16?<\/p>\n
That’s still being studied, and there’s no absolute reason yet. But a likely cause is another pool of warm water in the Pacific – but not from El Nino.<\/p>\n
El Nino is a seasonal reversal of the Trade Winds that blow eastward on the Equator. After a few years, those steady winds blow just a little more water to the far side of the Pacific – think of it like if you’re in a bath tub, and you blow on the surface, you can pile up the water at the far end of the tub just a little. When you run out of breath, that tiny bit of piled up water will rush back to you. El Nino is like when you run out of breath (unless you’re Kenny G or a marathon runner) – that little bit of piled up water rushes back towards South America. Because it’s been at the Equator for quite a while now, the strong sun has warmed it up, and it’s now warmer than the rest of the Pacific near South America. That warmer water then ‘supercharges’ Winter storms, and soaks the southern U.S.<\/p>\n
In 2014-15, a very persistent ridge of high pressure developed in the north Pacific, off of British Columbia. It deflected storms away from the west coast (California saw only 73% of our usual rain that Winter), and kept that part of the Pacific very quiet, which in turn, prevented it from cooling down during the Winter. A ‘blob’ of warm water developed in the north Pacific. The thought is that without the big temperature difference that usually exists during an El Nino Winter, incoming storms did not get ‘supercharged’ during the 2015-16 El Nino, so it turned out to be an average Winter for us. This is called El Nino Modoki, where Modoki is a Japanese word for ‘similar, but different’.<\/p>\n
And guess what? That warm ‘blob’ of water has returned to the north Pacific, which *could* turn this upcoming El Nino into an El Nino Modoki. <\/p>\n
Looking back at the past is easy. Making a forecast of what will happen in the future isn’t. Is that day old sushi in the bargain bin a good idea? Will the driver in front of you actually use their turn signal this time? Will my son remember to turn off the living room lights for a change? Will this upcoming El Nino be a wet one?<\/p>\n
Those are good questions, and maybe a little easier to answer now that we know more about El Nino. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a wetter El Nino, but I certainly have my doubts. It IS possible, however. Probably a better chance of that than those darn living room lights being shut down. And don’t even think about that day old sushi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This Winter started off SO wet, and then… it just stopped. A couple of days after New Year’s,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-241773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}