Ntxw wrote:There's definitely some chances for rainfall the next few days but I would keep expectations at a decent level. The upper feature in the southwest will provide favorable flow for Fall season type rain.
But we must remember we are now approaching a 2nd year La Nina and more importantly the PDO has been negative for nearly all of 2020-2021. This is a hard truth we must consider. The copious rainfall totals prior to 2019 is over in the warm PDO period. Gradually, the record months of rainfall have come to a halt and the dry spells are outlasting the wet spells that will continue, outside of a tropical influx event, and we've all seen it well now. Rainfall will likely risk underperforming rather than overperform in the coming months to possibly a year.
We haven't entered the Super Ninas that kickstarts the prolonged drought yet, thankfully. Most have been able to muster about average annual rainfall the past couple of years.
I still think is the case and this recent week of opportunistic rainfall has largely become underwhelming. We'll still see chances and some areas have received pretty good rains but it is localized and sparse in between. Most will be lucky to register an 1". There's no tropical Pacific connection. It's an ugly Nina coupled pattern right now with the -PDO, western troughs that underperform because no Pacific moisture.
Luckily cold waters of the Nina event are heavily centered west of South America in the Southern Hemisphere. If it were -PDO dominant cold strength in the Northern Hemisphere we'd risk a 2011-2012 type Nina dud winter.
