La Niña Fizzles As Storms Roll Through Southland

It’s gone. The so-called Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, also known as The Blob, once perched off the Northwest coast blocking all storms like a football team’s defensive line, has dissipated, said Bill Patzert, climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. Many climatologists believed this was the main reason for the lack of rainfall in Southern California, making the past five years the driest in Southern California history as measured from downtown Los Angeles.