I'm not surprised-almost every time they say it's going to rain here it doesn't.

And, to add to it...they get paid big bucks to lie to us!

Jim

Must be nice to get paid Big Bucks to have such abyssmal records!!! I, for one, would be covered in pink slips if I was wrong so much!

It just comes down to trying to predict what will happen based on patterns in the past and the further out you get, the more difficult it is for the models to determine the patterns. Of course, predicting a drought is not that hard to do. The severity of ours has lessened this year but is still present.

I am very worried about our water situation. The quality of the water is degrading. This summer, there was an average hardness of 40 grains and that is terrible. It will only get worse as the years go on, too.

Well, Nancy, it depends where you are. 8ish No CA??. I lived 60 years in northern ca bay area. We are talking El Nino at 80, and now 65% likely. It develops around Dec and it isn't dec yet so it is not surprising that there are variations in a prediction. Northern CA El Nino is usually drier while South and Central CA is wetter. You may be on the edge. For northern ca coast it doesn't rain from mid april thru mid sept so it is ALWAYS dry. El Nino is generally a one year event anyway so a general 10 year drought could coexist with one anyway because 8 or 9 years of little rain is a drought even if one gets a little extra rain in one year.

Jim and edeij, weather people don't get paid Big Bucks. They probably would be fired if they made uninformed remarks.

chas, I'm in Sonoma County. Our average rainfall is about 32". I think last year we had about 15".
Anyway, what they were talking about (El VS La) was the rainy one, and now they have done a 180. Nancy

I'd heard the same thing. High chance we would get one (yay!) then, nope, looks like it's going away.

I've learned to give long-range forecasts about the same credence as the daily horoscope.

I think you missed my point Nancy. Two months ago it was a 'La'. It is still a la nina now too. However, probably what you heard were reports from Los Angeles where they would be happy to hear of a higher potential for a wet winter and not Sonoma where it would more likely be drier.

What I heard was from our semi local station (San Jose) and the 10 year drought article was in our local (Santa Rosa) paper.
We need rain either way!!!! Nancy

Yes, local, San Francisco Bay Area specific. I have always known the difference between a La Nina and an El Nino. They have been predicting an El Nino up here (not LA) for months. Then they said that the temperature of the ocean got too hot for the El Nino and made it go away, or something along that line. It was coming. Now it's not.

Just like the missing Malasian airline. We found it! No we didn't. They found it! Nope, another false alarm. After so many of those, I start to believe it only when I see it.

Oops, sorry, I got my Els and Las mixed up in my last post. I was trying to say there was still a reasonable chance for El Nino AND it doesn't really mean rain. Below is a partial list of myths about El Ninos. I linked the whole site below.

Myth 5: When there is an El Niño, there is lots of rain in California. No -- The answer is not always and not everywhere. Historical records for the past six plus decades for Central California, including the SF Bay Area, show that during the twenty-two El Niño events the rainfall has been roughly above normal (i.e., > 120%) half the time and below normal (Over the same span, Northern California had three wet years years during the five strong events, with five above-normal seasons during the seventeen weak-to-moderate El Niños.

Southern California showed more of a wet bias during strong El Niños with above-normal rain in four of the five seasons, near normal the fifth year. During weak to moderate events Southern California precipitation was above normal six of the 17 seasons, near normal six seasons and below normal the remaining five yearss.

The bottom line is that California can get wet during El Niño, but not always. As a matter of fact, the California drought in the 1976-77 winter was during a weak El Niño. It is important to keep in mind that El Niño is not the only thing happening in the atmosphere and that other patterns can either enhance or detract from its overall impact.

Here is a link that might be useful: El Nino vs BA rain

I think what I was trying to say is that LA and EL really don't make sense to us lay people and that the weather people seemed to be kinda giving us some hope that the drought would ease! THEN they hit us with the possibility of a 10 YEAR drought!
Our area is very Ag and we are trying to plan for the worst. Nancy