This is just one post in the Drought, Weather & Snowpack Category

Weather experts predict another dry winter for region

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 22, 2008 at 6:19 am

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Dodging a disastrous third year of drought in California could take the kind of winter mega-storms that leave almost as much ruin as they do rain. But even a few “pineapple express” storms - torrents of warm, wet air carried from the southwest - won’t totally offset two critically dry years and legal rulings that limit water pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, scientists at a state water conference said Friday.

“We need much more than average (precipitation) to recover water storage, and even then we face an uncertain future with respect to the delta,” said Jeanine Johnson, interstate resources manager for the California Department of Water Resources. “The real message is, we need to plan and prepare as if 2009 will be dry.”

City representatives, water managers and consumers from across the state heard the twin “D” words - dry and drought - quite a lot at a first-ever winter precipitation outlook conference held Friday by the Department of Water Resources.

Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.

The San Diego Union Tribune adds this:

The long-range forecasters acknowledged that there was a great deal of uncertainty in their winter predictions. “There’s some room for a year that at least edges us toward normal precipitation (in Southern California),” Cayan said “It’s even possible that we’ll be above normal. But right now, it doesn’t look like a heavy winter in Southern California.”

Mike Dettinger, a colleague of Cayan’s at Scripps and the USGS, said patterns this year seem to favor a few “atmospheric rivers” of moisture during the winter. These rivers, more than a thousand miles long, could bring intense, multiday storms that would supply much of the year’s precipitation. “There’s modest hope for a break,” he said. “Don’t bet the farm on it, but don’t jump out of a window, either.”