SOUTHWESTERN U.S. - With new evidence of El Niño being at a 95% chance of lasting through the winter, many meteorologists are beginning to bank on the system bringing serious drought relief to California this season.
The next week or so in particular is expected to bring more substantial drought relief to the entire Southwest region, as an El Niño-fueled weather pattern begins to take shape on Wednesday and into the weekend, AccuWeather reports.
"This is as close as you're going to get to a sure thing," said Bill Patzert, a Climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, saying this El Niño is now, "too big to fail," at relieving some of California's drought.
Initially, just a few showers and thunderstorms will hit southern California on Wednesday, but the number will both increase and move farther inland on Thursday. For this weekend, most of the shower and thunderstorm activity will be across Arizona and into Mexico, but a new storm is expected to move off of the Pacific Ocean and increase moisture across California once again. According to AccuWeather, Sunday may give California its most widespread and beneficial rain, but added that this chance will continue to be monitored as the week continues.
Depending on where the storm moves now, this new storm could bring wet weather to San Diego, Los Angeles and all the way through to San Francisco. Rainfall will continue to be come increasingly common throughout the winter months due to El Niño, AccuWeather says, bringing even more chances of drought-combatting rain.
"A pattern of increased cloud cover and greater chances for rainfall will spring to life in the last week or two of October as an El Niño-dominated weather regime springs to life across the United States," AccuWeather Meteorologist Ben Noll said. "Meaningful rain will stretch from the Southwest into Texas and the southern Plains, and, in some instances, bring the risk for flooding.”
AccuWeather Expert Long-Range Forecaster Paul Pastelok also chimed in on El Niño’s potential effects on California’s climate, confirming that the 2015-2016 season may yield triple the amount of snow than last year and could fill reservoirs into spring and early summer.
For more on El Niño and California’s drought, keep tuning in to AndNowUKnow’s weather coverage.
