Despite the rain, forecasters predict more drought likely in CA

Water, water everywhere in Southern California today.

But climate scientists say even an average winter of rain won't be enough to stop the state's continuing drought conditions.

Forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released their winter weather predictions today. They said due to the lack of a strong El Niño or La Niña systems, predicting rainfall will be harder than usual this year.

But NOAA climate scientist Mike Halpert said there are equal odds that California will see above, below or near average rainfall.

"That kind of gives you two out of three that it's either going to be either near or below average," Halpert said on a conference call today.

"And given the drought that is currently there, even near average precipitation you will still have persistent drought."

California is in the midst of a two year dry spell.

That's depleted water supplies in parts of the state like Northern California where reservoirs are at or below 40% capacity.

Due to this, the California Department of Water Resources announced Wednesday one of the smallest initial allocations of water from state-run reservoirs.

NOAA scientists also said that water temperatures in a key spot of the eastern Pacific Ocean are neither high nor low. This indicator usually predicts either El Niño or La Niña weather.

Instead, the current prevailing weather pattern is what some are calling La Nada, or "the nothing" in Spanish.

This pattern makes it very hard to predict rain and temperatures in California.

The California Department of Water Resources is expected to release its own predictions for this winter's rain and snow early next week.