The monthly climate outlook released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects that most of California will remain in drought over the next several months. The forecast reverses last month’s projection that nearly half of the state would begin seeing relief.
Kirsty Perrett (l to r), pushes Zephina Robertson, 7 months, in a stroller as Graham Robertson walks alongside while out for a walk at Dolores Park on Thursday, April 21, 2016 in San Francisco, California.
The change reflects the results of a disappointing El Niño, which didn’t deliver the wetter-than-average winter that many had hoped for, and the increased odds of a La Niña emerging this fall — now at 70 percent.
While El Niño represents a warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean and is associated with jolts in global weather that often bring more rain and snow to California, La Niña is marked by cool equatorial waters and has virtually the opposite effect on weather.
“There is a trend for drier-than-normal conditions across the southern United States,” said Jon Gottschalck, chief of the operations branch of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.