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El Nino appears to be developing rapidly, could signal drought’s end; But scientists, water officials caution against getting hopes up

Posted by: Maven on June 25, 2009 at 8:30 am

From the North County Times:

Just as residents of San Diego and Riverside counties start adjusting to life with lawn-watering restrictions, there are signs California’s drought may be coming to an end next winter.

Climate scientists say conditions are ripe for the formation of an El Nino over the Pacific Ocean, an intermittent weather condition that brings wet winters to the southern United States. And that means there is a good chance Southern California will get above-normal rainfall next year. It also means Mother Nature may dump huge amounts of snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains, the source of much of the region’s water, though that is less certain, scientists say.

“There are no guarantees, but we’re unlikely to have another dry winter,” said Dave Pierce, climate researcher at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in a recent telephone interview.

From the OC Register’s Science Dude:

The U.S. Climate Prediction Center, which said only a couple of weeks ago that an El Niño might arise in the equatorial Pacific, now says that the periodic natural climate change seems to be evolving rapidly. The result, if the forecast turns out to be right, could mean an unusually wet winter for drought-plagued Orange County. It also might mean that the monsoonal flow into this area will be much stronger this summer.

In an analysis (read it) of the monsoon season for southeast Arizona, the CPC says online, “The forecast for the second half of the monsoon remains uncertain due to what appears to be a rapid-developing El Niño. An El Nino, which is a warming of water temperatures across the tropical East Pacific Ocean, causes significant changes in both monsoon and jet stream patterns, as well as the number of tropical cyclones in both the eastern Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Neither of these articles is really mentioning though that El Nino conditions do not always mean extra-wet years for California, depending upon where the jet stream positions itself.

And then there is this from the North County Times article:

John Liarakos, a spokesman for the San Diego County Water Authority, which distributes the bulk of water that San Diego County’s 3 million residents use, said any boost in rainfall would be welcome. But don’t expect watering restrictions to disappear anytime soon.

“The restrictions are going to be in place for at least the next year, regardless,” he said.

The problem, said Peter Odencrans, spokesman for Riverside County’s Eastern Municipal Water District, is that rain can help only so much. That’s because much of the reduction in water deliveries from Northern California was the result of environmentally based, court-ordered restrictions on pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta.

“We do not have just a weather drought, but a regulatory drought as well,” Odencrans said. And the regulatory drought is forecast to continue.

Read more from the North County Times by clicking here, and more from the OC Register’s Science Dude by clicking here.

June 25, 2009 · Filed Under Drought, Weather & Snowpack

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