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What does a weak La Niña mean for rain in SoCal?
View of the DTLA skyline from a residential street in Chinatown.
(
Alborz Kamalizad
/
LAist
)
Back in the spring it was looking like a strong La Niña might shape up come late fall, but since then the odds have decreased quite a bit, as waters along the equatorial Pacific didn’t get as cool as anticipated and westerly trade winds failed to organize.
We pay close attention to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, especially here in California, as it can affect our weather. La Niña is often associated with drier conditions in the southern half of the state.
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Now that neutral or close to neutral conditions are likely, there’s no large-scale atmospheric driver connected to the tropical Pacific that we can use to try and bolster our guesses about how things might trend.
However, there’s another anomaly off the coast that could have an influence: a marine heat wave.
There's a blob of warm water off the coast of California that could help juice storms as they pass over.
(
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
)
Off the northwest coast of California, waters are about 1 to 1.5 degrees celsius above normal. And it’s possible that as storms pass over the blob, the additional moisture evaporating from the ocean into the atmosphere could feed the storms and increase the amount of rain that falls.
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