El Niño signals are still iffy for northern reaches of state

[KamaAina]

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Odds-of-wet-El-Ni-o-winter-jump-for-S-F-but-6428681.php

While Southern California remains on track for a wet winter, the forecast for Northern California is still cloudy....

But it remains to be seen how far north the rain will spread. Only recently did the U.S. Climate Prediction Center say the Bay Area is about a third more likely to be wet than dry come winter, and it has yet to say anything about the state’s far northern reaches.

Precipitation in the top half of the state, where many of California’s big reservoirs are located, is most important water-wise, especially with supplies diminished after four dry years.

“There is a tendency toward wetter winters during your average El Niño event in the south,” explained Stanford University climate researcher Daniel Swain, noting that the correlation with rain makes Southern California conditions easier to forecast than those in the north. “The average El Niño signal is not really meaningful for (all of) California.”

[Lordquinton]

1. We will still have to wait for the snowpack

It could wash out the central valley and still leave us in drought if there's not enough snow. And even if there is snow, we'll need several years of more of the same to bring us out of the condition we're in.

[Brother Buzz]

2. El Niño is continuing to grow

While Southern California is on track to get slammed (think land slides and flooding, especially in the 'burn' regions), many are saying Northern California has a reasonable chance for above average rainfall.

Climate is what you expect; the weather is what you get - Mark Twain

[Brother Buzz]

3. 'Godzilla El Niño' may be coming to California

Some are even nicknaming this upcoming El Niño "Bruce Lee"

'Godzilla El Niño' may be coming to California
By Rong-Gong Lin II


The strengthening El Niño in the Pacific Ocean has the potential to become one of the most powerful on record, as warming ocean waters surge toward the Americas, setting up a pattern that could bring once-in-a-generation storms this winter to drought-parched California.

The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center said Thursday that all computer models are now predicting a strong El Niño to peak in the late fall or early winter. A host of observations have led scientists to conclude that “collectively, these atmospheric and oceanic features reflect a significant and strengthening El Niño.”

“This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.

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A strong El Niño can shift a subtropical jet stream that normally pours rain over the jungles of southern Mexico and Central America toward California and the southern United States.

But so much rain all at once has proved devastating to California in the past. In early 1998, storms brought widespread flooding and mudslides, causing 17 deaths and more than half a billion dollars in damage in California. Downtown L.A. got nearly a year's worth of rain in February 1998.

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http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-el-nino-20150813-htmlstory.html