More CA El Nino Storms On The Way, But Won't Be Nearly Enough - Snowpack Still Only @ 80%

[hatrack]

Storms have returned to California, bringing with them much-needed rain and snow after February came up disappointingly dry. But while this influx of moisture is expected to surpass storms earlier this winter, it won’t end the drought and could bring a downside of flooding and mudslides, experts warn. “We will have to see how it plays out to sort through the details, but it is one of the bigger events of the season,” California state climatologist Michael Anderson said.

With a strong El Niño influencing weather around the world, Californians had hoped for a sopping wet winter that would begin to erase the drought that has become entrenched over the last four years. El Niño tends to push around the jet stream in a way that amps up the normal winter rainy season for the state, particularly in Southern California.

The season hasn’t turned out quite as expected, though: It started out with a spate of storms, but these were mainly focused on Northern California. On the one hand, that helped build up the critical Sierra snowpack to above-normal levels, but it left Southern California high and dry.


Modeled precipitable water anomalies show the flow of an atmospheric river that will bring rain and snow to California this weekend and early next week.
Credit: Weatherbell

Come February, the spigot turned off, and a series of heat waves chipped away at some of the early gains. Sierra snowpack is now only about 80 percent of normal and short-term drought impacts in parts of Southern California have worsened. Now there’s only a little more than a month left in the winter rainy season and the strength of the El Niño is starting to wane, leaving precious little time to eke out as much moisture as possible. “Faced with the specter of a weakening El Niño and the end of the wet season, I dare say this looming two-week period of potential rainy/snowy weather is indeed critical,” Eric Luebehusen, a meteorologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and one of the authors of the weekly Drought Monitor, said in an email.

EDIT

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/march-miracle-el-nino-fueled-storms-return-to-california-20099

[mountain grammy]

1. Here in Colorado, at 8500 feet

our last significant snow was Feb 2nd and our daytime temps have been above freezing for weeks. Very unusual.

[JayhawkSD]

2. Not sure I would call them "El Nino storms."

The upcoming storms are predicted to drop 1" to 2" at the coast in 18 hours, which is about a normal type of storm for this time of year. No big deal and not likely to cause any significant flooding. In the El Nino of 97-98 the storms would drop more like 4-5" in 24 hours and caused noticable flood damage even down here in San Diego.

Yes, the jet stream has moved south, but it is almost entirely flat, which robs storms of a lot of their punch. The typical El Nino pattern is that the jet stream has a lot more of a "sine wave" shape, creating a lot more energy at the bottom of the wave and much stronger storms.

Even up north, where precip has been above average, it has not even come close to the 97-98 event.

[OnlinePoker]

3. Precip this past weekend did little to increase the snowpack

There was supposed to be a big dump, but I don't think they got as much as expected.

Sierra percentage of normal now North 84%, Central 87%, South 78%

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/snowapp/sweq.action