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.
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.
The Southwest monsoon has wrapped up, and it featured a weird split of record dry conditions in parts of Arizona and soaking rain, including from the remnants of a former hurricane in California, Nevada and other states.
Tropical Storm Hilary arrived in San Diego on Aug. 20. It rained all day, dropping at least two inches in most places.
Tropical Storm Hilary swept over the Golden State on Sunday, bringing a massive amount of precipitation along with during what is normally the driest time of the year, when wildfires are always a looming issue. The record-breaking rains left a trail of floods, mudslides and debris flows in their wake, with parts of Southern California left to pick up the pieces to start the new week. But, did the storm actually do anything to impact the state’s water supply?
A diminished Tropical Storm Hilary moved out of the San Diego Sunday night as gusty winds and bands of heavy rain continued to drench the region. “Tropical Storm Hilary will continue to move north across Southern California tonight. Strong and gusty winds will continue mainly across the mountains and foothills. Widespread moderate to heavy rainfall will continue through much of tonight,” the San Diego office of the National Weather Service said in its 9:30 p.m. forecast update.
Parts of Southern California and the U.S. Southwest on Monday faced the threat of flash flooding along with landslides and mudslides after storm Hilary unleashed record-breaking downpours overnight. Some 17 million Americans were under flood and high-wind advisories, watches and warnings as remnants of the storm moved north, dumping heavy rains from the California-Mexico border up through Las Vegas and into parts of the Northwest, the National Weather Service said.
California is once again bearing the brunt of inclement weather, as a low-pressure system off the coast rapidly intensifies and becomes a storm, tapping into another atmospheric river that’s flowing between Hawaii and California.
The storm that started Monday night is forecast to raise powerful winds along the coast that will spread to all corners of the Bay Area, Central Coast and Central Valley and peak just before sunrise on Tuesday. These winds will ferry heavy rainfall, thunderstorms and the risk for more flooding across most of the California coast and eventually Southern California.
California’s reservoirs may be as full as they’ve been in years thanks to recent rainfall, but it’s still not enough water to meet the state’s demands — and it will never be if the state doesn’t invest in new ways to capture all that precious water.
Not enough of the state’s heavy rainfall is draining into California’s underground reservoirs to keep us sated, even through the next summer.
A Pacific storm that is tapping into moisture from the sub-tropics dropped substantial amounts of rain across San Diego County before dawn on Tuesday, and more showers are expected as the system shuffles off to the east, according to the National Weather Service.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
