Friday, August 21, 2015

El Nino v. The Blob: The Latest

In this year's most important grudge match, El Nino v. the Blob, oddsmakers are swinging behind the big hot baby boy of the Pacific, big time.

The latest NOAA outlook forecasts the biggest El Nino since the first weigh-in way back when.  And for this neck of the woods, they say it means the Blob will fall, and we'll get that rain.  So will the high Sierras:

The northern reaches of bone-dry California will get some drought relief this winter, federal climate experts predicted Thursday — the first time forecasters have suggested that the much-hyped El Niño could send storms to the part of the state where they’re needed most.

Optimism for a drought-dampening winter have grown along with measurements of the strength of El Niño. Although there are no guarantees, in general, moderate El Niños boost the chances of wet winters in Southern California while more robust El Niños improve the odds of soaking storms in the north — where mountain runoff supplies the majority of California’s water supply.

 The Blob is already down, though not yet for the count:

The good news is that the weather conditions in the western Pacific tropics that are thought to have created the menacing mass of high pressure have already changed, said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, to reporters last week. Halpert says he expects El Niño to assert itself, and the ridge of high pressure to fade away.

The eastern US can expect a milder and wetter winter, which might mean some big snows as well as ice-storms, sleet and rain.

But it's still August, and the fires are still burning, and Humboldt County has declared a health emergency because of the smoke.

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