A new water year is here and there is much anticipation for what a growing El Niño will bring California. There is a likelihood the state could see back to back big water years.
After a year of unprecedented heat and flooding, experts are cautiously hopeful for California’s new water year with the threat of the historically unruly El Niño looming.
With the start of the new water year this week, state officials say there is plenty to celebrate. State climatologist Michael Anderson said in a Tuesday briefing that between October 2022 to March of this year, the state got 153% of normal rainfall, making it the sixth wettest water year on record.
The San Diego County Water Authority says higher than expected rainfall amounts and an anticipated El Niño are keeping levels high.
Current El Niño conditions appear likely to become comparable to the “great” El Niño of 1997-98, according to an experimental prediction system used by the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research.
“Our forecast system has shown that it can do a remarkably good job of accurately hindcasting past El Niño events when we’ve tested it using historical data, which gives us high confidence in this forecast,” said NCAR scientist Stephen Yeager, who helped lead the modeling effort.
Thanks to a decades-long supply diversification strategy and continued efficient use of water across the region, the San Diego County Water Authority announced today that the region has reliable supplies to meet demands in Water Year 2024, which started Oct. 1.
Hydrologists use Oct. 1 to begin measuring the snow and rain that will help carry water users through dry summer months the following calendar year. This fall, El Niño conditions continue to strengthen and could bring above-average precipitation to Southern California.
An El Niño winter is ahead, weather forecasters firmly believe. The question they are pondering is exactly how strong it might be.
Locally, the worldwide weather factor is mostly known for directing heavy moisture toward California and the Southwest as temperatures warm several degrees across the eastern and central Pacific Ocean.
El Niño conditions continue to strengthen and some may see the return of an active winter. But could Northern California see any impacts?
In a recent El Niño forecast by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there is a greater than 95% chance that El Niño continues across the Northern Hemisphere through the winter into 2024. The chance of a “strong” El Niño has also increased from 66% in August to now 71% in September.
El Niño has arrived, and the climate pattern is likely to bring above-average moisture to the southern U.S. this winter.
El Niño is one of two climate patterns that greatly impact Earth’s weather. La Niña recently culminated in the spring, ending a multiyear period in which the pattern influenced the weather. El Niño started in June, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) most recent update has identified El Niño as having high odds of being historically strong.
That means parts of California could see another wet winter, a welcome weather pattern as many of the state’s lakes and reservoirs continue to recover from a years-long drought. But an El Niño year doesn’t guarantee excess moisture in Southern California.
Rainy weather moved through the Northstate a little earlier than a normal season on Monday.
Fall has only just begun, but it’s not too soon to look ahead to winter, especially since this one may look drastically different than recent years because of El Niño.
This winter will be the first in a few years to feel the effects of the phenomenon, which has a sizable impact on the weather during the coldest months of the year.
