Sun-baked mud is cracking along the bare margins of Lake Mendocino, the reservoir near Ukiah that helps sustain river flows for imperiled fish and supply water to 600,000 people in Sonoma and Marin counties.
The shoreline is about 100 yards out, leaving the boat ramp near Coyote Valley Dam high and dry. No people were in or on the water Monday, and geese were feasting on whatever the lake bed gave up.
As historic wildfires continue to burn across California, Oregon and other Western states, government climate experts say much of the U.S. is likely to see persistent drought conditions and fire risk alongside continued above-average temperatures through the fall.
During a briefing Thursday, forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that while wetter conditions are expected to bring some drought relief to parts of the Pacific Northwest and New England in the months ahead, drought conditions are likely to persist or even worsen in Central and Southern California and across the Southwest.
Message to Democrats: Just because President Trump says it, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.
Yes, our president habitually fantasizes, distorts and lies. But to borrow an old cliché, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
One important example: Trump’s widely ridiculed comment that California needs to “rake the floor” of its forests better.
The West Coast had just experienced a record-shattering heat wave when news came last week of a rare late-summer snowstorm in Colorado. To those still sweltering in California, Oregon and Washington, it sounded like a dream come true. In fact, it was an omen of a greater disaster to come.
Climate forecasters said Thursday that the world had entered La Niña, the opposite phase of the climate pattern that also brings El Niño and affects weather across the globe. Among other impacts, La Niña has the potential this winter to worsen what are already severe drought conditions in the American Southwest.
La Niña conditions were observed in the Pacific Ocean last month, and there is a 75% chance the weather pattern will persist through the winter, forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
San Diego ocean temperatures hit record territory this past weekend, as a heatwave also baked the San Diego Region. The record comes just weeks after the unseasonably cool ocean temperatures were recorded. Someone has taken the temperature at the end of Scripps Pier every day for more than 100 years. Sunday’s reading tied for the hottest on record 79.5 degrees Fahrenheit. It tied the record that was set just two years ago.
The San Diego County Water Authority announced Monday it is partnering with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego to better predict atmospheric rivers and improve water management before, during and after those seasonal storms. This month, Scripps’ Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes launched the Water Affiliates Group, which brings together science and hands-on water industry experience to enhance reservoir operations in light of the changing climate. The water authority has a long-running alliance with Scripps.
Hurricane Genevieve fizzled after hammering Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, but its remnant moisture and spin may boost thunderstorms in the Desert Southwest and fire-ravaged California through Monday.
Genevieve rapidly intensified to a Category 4 hurricane Tuesday, then grazed Mexico’s southern Baja California Peninsula as a weaker hurricane with flooding rain, high winds and high surf.
After that, as most hurricanes in this part of the eastern Pacific do when they move farther northwest over cooler water and more stable air, Genevieve fizzled rapidly into a remnant low west of the Baja Peninsula.
Odds increasingly favor a La Niña weather pattern taking hold by fall, upping the chances for a cold and wet Northwest winter, the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center says.
The center pegged at 60% the chances of a La Niña prevailing in November, December and January. A month ago, the center put the chances at 53%.
