Water Education Foundation
This is just one post in the Drought, Weather & Snowpack Category
Click here to view all posts

Forecasters unsure how much rain El Nino will bring

Posted by: Maven on July 1, 2009 at 6:52 am

From the Riverside Press-Enterprise:

Warming surface temperatures off the coast of Peru in the eastern Pacific Ocean are sending signals to weather forecasters that we are headed for another El Niño this fall.

But don’t run out and buy a new umbrella just yet.

The suggestion of an El Niño conjures memories of the 1997-98 winter, which led to the Inland area’s fourth wettest rainy season on record. Riverside got a total of 21.35 inches that year and Riverside and San Bernardino counties suffered $65 million in flood damage. “That was the El Niño of El Niños,” said Steven Vanderburg, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in San Diego. “It was the gold standard. Most El Niño’s are not nearly that severe.”

It will take at least three months of sustained water temperatures of at least half a degree Celsius (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare that an El Niño is in effect.

Read more from the Riverside Press-Enterprise by clicking here.

July 1, 2009 · Filed Under Drought, Weather & Snowpack

Comments

Leave a Reply