You are now in California and the U.S. category.

That’s because in the past, strong La Niña events typically bring warm, dry winters in Southern California. However, when there is a weak La Niña or none at all, odds are better we might see a regular winter with average rainfall.

“I’d say that’s a reasonable bet,” said Michael Jacox, an ocean scientist with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Fellow NOAA researchers said Thursday that chances a La Niña will form this fall are about 55 to 60%.

California Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration yesterday released a plan to extend the state’s landmark cap-and-trade program in a bid to slash greenhouse gas emissions through midcentury.

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) proposed amendments to the program yesterday evening that envision a carbon market through 2050 with increasing allowance prices, sending a signal to businesses that have been waiting to see if they should keep participating in the state’s quarterly auctions.

Last summer, it was hard to miss news about California’s drought, caused by the four driest years in the state’s history. Its impact on California’s economy in 2015 alone was estimated at $2.7 billion dollars and 21,000 jobs lost. Thanks to El Niño, this drought has eased some, but 42 percent of the state is still in a condition of extreme drought.

In 2007, there was a drought that didn’t garner quite the same national attention: Atlanta, Georgia was in a state of exceptional drought from September to December and came within a few months of running out of water.

A fifth year of disappointing snow in the Sierra is part of a much larger predicament of record-low snow across the Northern Hemisphere, a setback that scientists identified Wednesday as another reminder of the alarming pace of human-caused global warming.

A panel of climate experts organized by SEARCH, or the Study of Environmental Arctic Change, met in Washington, D.C., to draw attention to the historic melt-off of snow and ice during the first six months of 2016 — and the resulting problems.