Rain May Finally Be on Horizon

Even if forecasts hold true and a big storm finally kicks off California’s rainy season this week, there is almost no chance for a normal winter, a conference of hydrologists was told Saturday.

“The odds are against it coming out normal,” state meteorologist William Mork said at Mammoth Mountain. “Any way you cut it, we have never seen a fall this dry.”

In Santa Monica, beach sand was hauled in for an annual event that usually features 50 to 100 tons of snow trucked in from Mammoth.

Meteorologists are predicting rain and snow from the Gulf of Alaska early this week, but it will be too little and too late to change the state’s water outlook, experts said.

To date, precipitation has been only 10% of average throughout the state and only 20% in the northern Sierra.

Even the soggiest region in the state, Eureka, has had only 53% of the rainfall it normally has by this time.

Still, California will not have a water shortage, the state’s chief hydrologist, Maurice Roos, said. That is because water left over from last season is 120% of normal.

Weather indicators show that historically, a dry fall is an omen of a dry winter. California Cooperative Snow Survey charts show that a dry autumn in Sacramento produced a dry winter in the state in 20 out of 24 years, Mork said.

In addition, long-term forecasters have been predicting a drier than normal season. The only exception is the somewhat unscientific Old Farmers Almanac, which incorrectly predicted “heavy rain and snow” in the mountains in November.

By contrast, at this time last year, ski resorts were smothered in dry powder and rivers were rising.