Godzilla El Niño on its way?
The Times quoted Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, as saying, “This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño.”
El Niño storms batter San Diego's Ocean Beach Pier Cafe in 2002. Wikimedia Commons
A growing El Niño “could bring once-in-a-generation storms to drought-parched California,” according to a story from the L.A. Times this morning. The Times quoted Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, as saying, “This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño.”
The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center’s monthly update noted “that ocean conditions are on par with what forecasters saw before the monster El Niño winters of 1997-98 and 1982-83,” according to a report posted on sfgate.com this morning.
The center forecast a 90 percent or better chance that El Niño will continue through the winter in the Northern Hemisphere and an 85 percent chance that it will run into the early spring.
These are predictions, of course, not guarantees. For now, the drought reigns.
