El Niño is essentially a big hype over nothing (temperature, days)
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Here in the South, El Niño winters are typically back-loaded. They often start out warmer than normal in December, and become progressively cooler through January, with February being the coldest month relative to normal. That's exactly how the winter of 2009-2010 played out, actually. El Nino winters are also wet across the South, and often include severe weather outbreaks early in the season. Gee, sounds just like this week. And current forecast models are beginning to indicate colder temperatures across the South just in time for New Year's Eve. El Niño seems to be right on schedule here.
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Originally Posted by norman_w
The joke is the two professions where you can be wrong most of the time and not lose your job are the weather and psychology
Yeah, it really is a joke that people believe that.
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Originally Posted by DCMann2
El Nino is most certainly having an effect on weather all across the globe. Just because it's not raining in the desert SW yet doesn't mean it's a total bust. The NWS have mentioned more than once that the rain isn't really supposed to kick into gear in the SW until after the new year and last through March and into April, and their predictions of warmer temperatures from the west coast through New England are clearly accurate, as are the predictions of wetter weather across the Deep South.
Calling them the "national blather service" shows a lack of maturity, and calling for them to be defunded only reinforces that lack of maturity. Models are only tools that help give us a picture of what situation is more or less likely to happen, and no model is 100% accurate. Even if the NWS show a 99% chance of something happening there's still a 1% chance that it won't. It would behoove you to understand that.
I think your entire post just went over his head.
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Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed
OP is a typical Faux News watcher. Not surprised they would make an OP full of erroneous assumptions and misinformation
I watch Fox News and I vehemently disagree with the original post. Doesn't that just blow your simple mind?
Well those are probabilities, not high certainties... a 24% chance of below normal wasn't that unlikely. And that's what came. Even this season, the chance above average is 50-60% for central California.
Not high certainties? Haven't you seen all the reports in the last few months stating with high certainty that CA will have a very wet, record setting winter? Here are just two websites out of many which pretty much say the same thing:
Weather Trends International is currently forecasting the 2nd wettest Winter in 10 years for California but very likely this goes even higher and more similar to 1997-1998 in light of the very strong El Nino potential.
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.
These statements sound pretty highly certain to me ... so if they are just merely probabilities or educated guesses at best (which they indeed really are), then why do they always get people's hopes up with all these crazy predictions? It's not just the fact that CA and the SW are in dire need of drought relief, but some of these reports even say that this El Niño is a "Godzilla", and the winter storms associated with it are going to be "enormous".
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Originally Posted by NativeOrange
Well, even normal would be a welcome relief from the last few years. Either way, the southwest is not the place you want rain to be falling if you want to put a major dent in the drought. NorCal is where the reservoirs are, where the snowmelt goes, etc.
Actually, in a normal winter, the SW can still be quite wet. On average, Phoenix receives a little less than 50% of it's annual precipitation during the winter season of December through March. Los Angeles, San Diego, and many other locations in southern CA normally get about 75% of their annual precipitation during this period. Reservoirs throughout southern CA and AZ rely on rain and snow melt from the nearby mountains (not just from northern CA), and all of them are on the low side. Lake Mead in particular is at its lowest level ever, which is troubling news for both the Phoenix and Las Vegas areas.
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Originally Posted by NativeOrange
Also, if you read nei's blog post, he clearly states that the storm track has been slowly shifting southward, first aiming at the PacNW in early fall, now closer to aiming storms at southern Oregon/Northern California. It doesn't really matter whether they are classic El Niño storms that come in from due west yet, because the ocean even in the North Pacific is warm and sea levels are high. Gulf of Alaska storms can still tap that ample moisture.
I did read the blog, and it sounds like more hyped up predictions which may or may not come true. I personally don't trust any of these so called experts because they are seldom accurate. All I can say about the potentially super stormy winter that we're supposed to have is: I'll believe it when I see it.
Not high certainties? Haven't you seen all the reports in the last few months stating with high certainty that CA will have a very wet, record setting winter? Here are just two websites out of many which pretty much say the same thing:
I'm going by the NOAA seasonal prediction maps you posted, which do show just probabilties.
The last big El Niño was very wet, and close to record breaking in many places in California. Some of the California will get a very wet winter is based off of the previous winter.
Not high certainties? Haven't you seen all the reports in the last few months stating with high certainty that CA will have a very wet, record setting winter? Here are just two websites out of many which pretty much say the same thing:
These statements sound pretty highly certain to me ... so if they are just merely probabilities or educated guesses at best (which they indeed really are), then why do they always get people's hopes up with all these crazy predictions? It's not just the fact that CA and the SW are in dire need of drought relief, but some of these reports even say that this El Niño is a "Godzilla", and the winter storms associated with it are going to be "enormous".
Actually, in a normal winter, the SW can still be quite wet. On average, Phoenix receives a little less than 50% of it's annual precipitation during the winter season of December through March. Los Angeles, San Diego, and many other locations in southern CA normally get about 75% of their annual precipitation during this period. Reservoirs throughout southern CA and AZ rely on rain and snow melt from the nearby mountains (not just from northern CA), and all of them are on the low side. Lake Mead in particular is at its lowest level ever, which is troubling news for both the Phoenix and Las Vegas areas.
I did read the blog, and it sounds like more hyped up predictions which may or may not come true. I personally don't trust any of these so called experts because they are seldom accurate. All I can say about the potentially super stormy winter that we're supposed to have is: I'll believe it when I see it.
Hmm. I don't think you seem to know where water in lake mead comes from (Colorado River). Some people consider Colorado the southwest, but either way, they're also having a great season:
The other reservoirs we have in SoCal are a drop in the bucket compared to what we rely on from imports from the north. From wiki:
"Around 75% of California's water supply comes from north of Sacramento, while 80% of the water demand occurs in the southern two-thirds of the state."
I'm going by the NOAA seasonal prediction maps you posted, which do show just probabilties.
The last big El Niño was very wet, and close to record breaking in many places in California. Some of the California will get a very wet winter is based off of the previous winter.
The last "big" El Niño was the one in 1997-1998, and that one admittedly did produce a very wet winter across much of California. What concerns me the most about the "big" El Niño this year is it's not producing the precipitation thus far which was originally predicted ... and CA & the SW would have normally seen the heavier (or at least the more frequent) storms begin in December, such as in the winter season of 1997-1998. During the strong El Niño of 1982-1983, the storms began in November and didn't really let up until May if I recall.
I'm still holding out for at least some miniscule hope that the weather pattern will turn around in January (as all the "experts" are saying). In the winter of 2009-2010, December and early January were relatively dry, but there was quite a bit of precipitation in late January & February across much of southern CA & AZ. That was the last confirmed El Niño season, which was much weaker than this present El Niño supposedly is.
Yes. El Niño conditions are present. I don't ever remember them saying we would receive rainfall by October. Given past El Niños, I don't see why anyone would predict rains in October for the southwest with any sort of confidence, seeing as how the effects are usually not seen until December like someone else has mentioned. This is when the subtropical jet really ramps up and brings storm systems into the southern tier of the US.
And? "Usually" was the key word there. Like I said, every season is different. I was going off of probabilities.
Nothing I said in my last post disagreed with anything I said prior. Either way, it's clear that NorCal, where we most need the water, is in pretty good shape so far. So maybe with all this info you can rest easy and not jump to absolute conclusions just yet.
[b]January through March[b] is ususlly when California gets slammed.
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