One northern California rice farmer who recently spoke with me seems confident, based on his reading of the Old Farmers’ Almanac, that we’re due for the kind of winter we saw in the early 1970s and some in the 1980s. Ocean cooling has apparently not coupled with atmospheric conditions to bring on La Niña, at least for this season. It suggests more normal conditions across the Pacific could mean near-normal rainfall for Central Valley farmers and above normal precipitation for the northern Sierra.Įven the federal government is backing away from its prediction of La Niña, as reported on.

Some says La Niña may not appear at all, and it may actually lead to a better rainy season than if SST’s cool below normal.Ī graphic from Golden Gate Weather Services illustrates this point. The waning of El Niño led the way to predictions of La Niña, the opposite condition in the Pacific Ocean where sea surface temperatures (SST) cool below normal due to weather pattern changes. It rained enough to fill lakes Shasta, Oroville and Folsom, though this did not translate into significantly improved irrigation conditions for farmers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.Īnd while snow fell in the mountains, runoff wasn't stored.

About this time last year when we were asked to brace ourselves for an epic El Niño, the likes never seen before. Implied in the forecast was California would float out of its drought and life would be hunky dory.

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