Warm weather complicates El Niño, drought outlook

Sacramento Bee

Like a lot of Californians, Sue and Steve Duroncelet are getting whipsawed by conflicting weather. After dutifully letting their Land Park lawn go brown, the couple now are having to trim their trees to prepare for El Niño storms while they sweat out an early-fall heat wave.

“We’re ready for cold air,” Sue Duroncelet said Thursday as she and her husband walked through midtown Sacramento.

It’s been warm in Sacramento, way too warm for mid-October, the latest twist in a year of often maddening weather patterns. While a cooling trend may give some immediate relief, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says higher-than-normal temperatures likely will be the rule and not the exception this fall and winter. That could be a problem: Warm weather could hinder how much drought relief California will get when the much-anticipated El Niño arrives and the precipitation starts to fall.

The oceanic agency delivered its latest winter forecast Thursday, and it was something of a mixed bag. It reiterated earlier predictions that California can expect one of the strongest El Niño winters ever, with above-average rains increasingly likely for the central and southern parts of the state.

Northern California, home to most of the state’s major reservoirs, remains tougher to forecast. The agency said the Sacramento Valley has an 80 percent chance of getting normal precipitation this winter, and a 34 percent to 40 percent chance of above-average precipitation.

However, the agency said exceedingly warm temperatures will mean much of that precipitation is likely to fall as rain instead of snow, undermining El Niño’s ability to ease the drought substantially. What California needs most is a generous snowpack in the northern Sierra Nevada, capable of keeping reservoirs, rivers and canals filled with runoff well into next spring and summer.

Overall, “the winter outlook is good news for California,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director at the federal agency’s Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Md. But he said El Niño likely will translate into “drought improvement,” not “drought removal.” The heaviest precipitation should begin in January.

Speaking on a conference call with reporters, Halpert said California’s accumulated water “deficit” is almost certainly too steep to remedy in one winter. California needs about three times the normal precipitation to bring the state back into balance; the wettest winter in modern history, in 1983, brought twice as much precipitation as normal.

“One season of above-average rain and snow is unlikely to erase four years of drought,” Halpert said.

Meanwhile, the unusual fall heat is making it harder for some area water district managers to reach their mandated conservation goals. The Fair Oaks Water District had cut water use by 39 percent since June, when statewide mandates went into effect. In September, the savings trailed off to 25 percent, said general manager Tom Gray. He said the challenge is that while most homeowners have contentiously let their lawns die, they’re still watering the trees and shrubs that otherwise would wither in the heat.

“Even those same water-responsible people are still using outdoor irrigation,” Gray said. “At this time of year, (normally) they’d be trending back. They’re not.”

The unseasonable weather also has kept state fire crews on full alert. They responded to 125 new fires last week. A 600-acre fire near Hollister is still burning, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“We’ve not changed or talked about the reduction of staffing that we’d normally be doing this time of year,” Berlant said.
The unseasonal heat is enough to frustrate even meteorologists who study weather patterns for a living.

“Fall’s a nice time of year. You cool off. You shouldn’t be in mid-October and it’s 95 degrees outside,” said Jason Clapp of the National Weather Service in Sacramento, ending the last sentence with a disgusted “ugh.”

Temperatures hit a high of 96 on Tuesday in Sacramento, a record for Oct 13. Although temperatures have cooled somewhat, Thursday’s high downtown of 90 was still several degrees above normal. Earlier predictions of a wet weekend have given way to a mere 20 percent chance of sprinkles late Saturday.

Mike Anderson, the state climatologist, said the warm spell “has a lot to do with some lingering summer patterns. We have a lot of warm air. We haven’t quite gotten into our fall pattern.”

El Niño is a phenomenon marked by warming sea temperatures in the Pacific during summer and fall. It usually unleashes a torrent of rain in Southern California, but the impact is generally less predictable in Northern California.

Halpert, of the national oceanic agency, said this winter’s El Nino is shaping up as one of the three strongest in the past half-century, and the chance of a wet winter in Northern California is improving. “As we get closer to winter, we’re probably tilting a little more toward a wetter-than-average winter” in Northern California, he said.

Heavy rains would help replenish the region’s underfilled reservoirs, at least in the short term. Folsom Lake fell to its lowest level in 23 years this week, bringing the giant reservoir to just 17 percent of capacity.

In the Sierra, however, snow would be better than rain. That would translate into snowmelt that provides additional water next spring and summer, over and above what can be safely stored in Folsom, Shasta and other reservoirs during the storm season. The difference between a rainy winter and a snowy one can be enormous. The Sacramento region received two-thirds of its normal rainfall last winter, but the Sierra snowpack was just 5 percent of normal, leading to record drought conditions.

Asked about the expected snowpack around Lake Tahoe this winter, Alan Haynes, a hydrologist with the federal agency’s California Nevada River Forecast Center, said “it might be slightly more likely to be wet and slightly more likely to be warmer.”

Tahoe tourism officials will embrace that forecast. After a winter that forced at least seven Tahoe-area ski resorts to shut down prematurely, the possibility of any kind of meaningful precipitation is a reason for hope.

“If you have any kind of moisture, your odds of it being cold enough and white enough go up,” said John Rice, general manager at Sierra-at-Tahoe. The resort closed two weeks ahead of schedule last winter.

2016 Long Range Weather Forecast for Pacific Southwest

The Old Farmers Almanac

Two-Month Weather Forecast

OCTOBER 2015: temperature 64° (1° below avg.); precipitation 1" (1" above avg. north, 0.5" below south); Oct 1-10: Sunny, cool; Oct 11-16: Showers, mainly north; cool; Oct 17-22: Sunny, cool; Oct 23-26: Showers north, sunny south; Oct 27-31: Rainy north, showers south; mild.

NOVEMBER 2015: temperature 60° (2° above avg.); precipitation 3.5" (2" above avg.); Nov 1-4: Showers north, sunny south; Nov 5-16: Sunny; warm, then seasonable; Nov 17-22: Stormy, heavy rains; Nov 23-30: Rainy periods, mild.

Annual Weather Summary: November 2015 to October 2016

Although the early part of the winter season will feature above-normal rainfall, the drought will continue as rainy periods will diminish in the season?s second half and precipitation will be below normal for the winter season as a whole, with below-normal mountain snows not helping to ease the drought. The stormiest periods will be in mid- to late November, early to mid-December, early January, and early March. Overall, temperatures will be slightly cooler than normal. The coldest period will be in late December, with other cold periods in early and late January and mid-February.

April and May will be cooler and slightly rainier than normal.

Summer will be hotter than normal, with near-normal rainfall. The hottest periods will be in early June, early to mid- and late July, and early and mid- to late August.

September and October will be slightly cooler than normal, with near-normal rainfall.

Temperature and Precipitation November 2015 to October 2016

New forecast says El Niño could help Northern California, ease drought

Sacramento Bee

From left, Dominic Smith, Aiden Shephard and Blake Machado, all age 14 and of El Dorado Hills, wade to shore around rocks exposed by the American River’s low water level near the Rainbow Bridge in Folsom earlier this summer. Paul Kitagaki Jr. pkitagaki@sacbee.com

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article38191380.html#storylink=cpy

El Niño might put a dent in the drought after all.

In a revised forecast Thursday, the National Weather Service said Northern California stands a decent chance of getting significant precipitation from this winter’s El Niño weather pattern, a development that could help ease the state’s four-year drought.

Until now, forecasters have been saying this winter likely would bring heavy rains to Southern California, which is typical for El Niño, but they’ve been less certain about the outlook for the northern half of the state. Because the state’s major reservoirs are in the north, that’s where the rain and snow need to fall to substantially bolster the state’s water supplies.

Michelle Mead, a forecaster in the agency’s Sacramento office, said Sacramento and the Sacramento Valley have at least an 80 percent chance of seeing average precipitation this winter. The chance of above-average precipitation has been pegged at 34 percent to 40 percent, she said.

“Not that it will be a deluge and everybody needs to stop conserving water,” she said. The bulk of the precipitation will fall in December, January and February, she said.

William Patzert, a climate expert at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, was less circumspect, saying he’s convinced El Niño will be felt in Northern California. “At this point – at this particular time – this is too large too fail,” he said. “People like to be conservative. They don’t want to stick their neck out. But this is definitely the real deal.”

If history is a guide, California will see big snow in the northern mountains along with rain in the south, Patzert said. “The last two El Niños that were of this magnitude hosed all of California,” he said. “If you look at the snowpack for those two El Niños, you had double the snowpack, too.”

What’s changed since the weather service’s previous forecasts? Mead said analysts took a fresh look at previous winters and concluded that strong El Niños tend to bring heavy rains in the north. Other forecasters noted the persistence of this year’s El Niño and said temperature anomalies in the South Pacific are favorable to Northern California’s rain outlook.

“Moderate El Niños tend to get Southern California wet, and the strong ones get all of California wet,” said Jeffrey Mount, a water specialist at the Public Policy Institute of California. Mount said he’s encouraged that the so-called “ridiculously resilient ridge,” the high-pressure system that kept rain and snow from falling on California, is breaking down.

But Mount and Jay Lund, an engineer and watershed specialist at UC Davis, noted that the relative scarcity of strong El Niños – just six since 1957 – means it’s difficult to get too comfortable with the latest forecast.

“We have a small sample size,” Lund said. “There’s still a substantial probability that we’re going to be in a drought next year.”

State climatologist Michael Anderson, who has urged caution as El Niño fever has risen in the last few months, said he, too, thinks there’s a better chance of significant precipitation in Northern California. “As we get closer, we are seeing trajectories move in a more favorable outcome,” he said.

Anderson nonetheless encouraged Sacramento residents to continue to conserve water. He and others noted that the drought is so severe that even a huge rainfall year will not fully erase its effects. Plus, he said, “We want to wait until we actually see it.”

Mead said Sacramento received 13.8 inches of rain last winter, about 68 percent of average.

El Niño is a phenomenon linked to above-average water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. Mead said the temperature is expected to peak at 2.5 degrees Celsius above normal this winter, ranking this among the strongest El Niños on record.

The latest forecast put the chance of El Niño striking at 95 percent, the same as a month ago.

State’s water savings hit 27%

Fresno Bee

Californians beat the state’s mandates for water conservation in August – barely.

Urban water use fell by 26.9 percent compared with August 2013, a conservation rate that was lower than July’s but still higher than the 25 percent requirement set by Gov. Jerry Brown, the State Water Resources Control Board announced Thursday.

The results mean Californians have beaten the statewide mandate during each of the first three months of mandatory cutbacks ordered by the governor. Savings have averaged 28.7 percent since the cutbacks went into effect June 1.

Drought regulators said they were generally pleased with the results, although the savings rate for August wasn’t as impressive as the 31.4 percent in July. Board Chair Felicia Marcus said a spell of rainy weather in Southern California in July made it easier to conserve water that month, and she thinks water users aren’t backsliding.

“People get it,” she said on a conference call with reporters. “In a crisis, people pull together and they hang in there.”

Most central San Joaquin Valley water agencies fell short of their state conservation goals in August, officials said, though Selma, Kingsburg, Merced and Bakman Water Co., which serves an area southeast of Fresno, achieved their goals.

Fresno came close, reducing water consumption by 27.5 percent compared with August 2013 –half a percent short of its 28 percent goal.

Some water providers, however, fell far short of the state-mandated conservation standard.

At 15.6 percent, Lemoore’s reduction was less than half of what the state sought – 32 percent. Hanford was even worse – just 5.7 percent vs. a goal of 28 percent.

Hanford, which is among the lowest-performing communities in water conservation under the state’s rules, was the only Central Valley city issued a compliance order by the State Water Resources Control Board. Hanford was one of eight cities statewide to receive a compliance order.

Lou Camara, the city’s public works director, said Hanford was expecting it.

The city will improve conservation by raising rates to encourage conservation, update bills to make them easier for customers to understand and improve public awareness and outreach by adding booths at local shopping malls to make residents more aware of conservation.

For about 25 years, Camara said, the city has made efforts to reduce water consumption, which means Hanford was starting at a lower consumption level than other cities that only recently began conserving. Since 2013, the city’s water consumption has increased because of new commercial projects and the addition of three subdivisions and a school outside the city limits into the city’s water system.

In Sacramento, where residents woke up to wet pavement, Marcus warned Californians against becoming complacent about water use. She was particularly worried about residents overreacting to forecasts of a significant El Niño winter. She noted forecasters have said the storms could fall mainly in Southern California, bypassing the north state.

September Update

Dear Member:

September temperatures were close to normal with a couple of rainy days at mid-month which brought us exactly the average rain fall for the month of .12 inches. 

It seems everyone as heard the many predictions of an El Nino year with plenty of rain throughout the state. A few climatologists are less than enthusiastic about a coming El Nino because recent climate change disrupts the long range models making predictions with any degree of confidence more difficult.  

As of October 1, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the six key Central Valley Project (CVP) reservoirs – Shasta, Trinity, Folsom, New Melones, Millerton, and the federal share of San Luis Reservoir – hold 24 percent of their total carrying capacity and just 47 percent of the 6.12 million acre feet the lakes should have in them at this time of the year.  Storage on Oct. 1 was 200,000 acre feet less than what the CVP began the 2014-15 water year with.  Lower releases for the coming year will mean more ground water pumping.

Water Usage

Usage in September was better compared to August.  September usage was 1% behind the target and 7% better than last September. Year to date, we are still 10% better than last year and only 3% behind the target usage.  If you have a seasonal adjustment on your lawn sprinkler controller, you should be dialing it back to 60-70% of normal. 

The water depth of our well was checked in mid-September. The level dropped 3 feet from the check in May.  It is also 3 feet lower than the same time last year.

Cost Comparison

Henderson Nevada draws water from Lake Mead.  Backed up by the Hoover Dam, it supplies water to Southern Nevada, Arizona, and Southern California.  Southern Nevada,along with the surrounding area including the Colorado River watershed, is in the midst of a multi year drought which has forced water savings by all means including increased water rates.  Henderson rates are now tiered with heavy users paying much higher rates.  As you can see in the following graph, monthly household usage costs would be dramatically higher there than here.  Also included in the graph is an estimate of the monthly cost if we were purchasing water from the City of Fresno, also much higher than the BWC current rates.