Why California Can't Predict Winter Weather – Orange County Register

Vehicles traveling along the southbound lanes of Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa pass through storm runoff on Tuesday afternoon, February 6, 2024. This was the third day of heavy rainfall across Orange County. (Photo by Mark Rittmeier, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Harris K. Telemacher was a Los Angeles television weather anchor with a doctorate in the humanities but no real training in meteorology. So, assuming the weather in California was predictable, he recorded his televised forecast weeks in advance. This worked until an unexpected Pacific storm inundated Southland during one of his pre-recorded forecasts.

Telemacher was also a fictional character invented by Steve Martin in the film Los Angeles story. But he embodied a real-life cliché that needs to be retired.

California weather has never been as predictable as a TV weathercaster's gag — especially when it comes to rain and snow in Golden State winters like this one.

In reality, There is no state in the lower 48 You see a great deal of variation in rainfall from year to year Like California. Such volatility makes our weather as unpredictable as anything else in this volatile state. Last year, California was in the middle of a crisis The driest three-year period in recorded history When the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted a drier than average winter. Instead, we had one of the wettest winters on record.

Now, another winter full of climate surprises has arrived, showing that California is desperate for better seasonal Predictions so we can plan and protect ourselves in this era of climate change.

Seasonal forecasts are not the predictions of tomorrow's weather offered by Telemacher and his imitators. Seasonal forecasts provide ranges of possible weather changes for the upcoming calendar season. Meteorologists will tell you that although it's impossible to tell you the weather on a particular day months in advance, they should be able to predict how wet or dry the following season will be.

But it's always been difficult to do that in California. Recently, it has become more difficult due to the state's “weather fluctuations” – the fluctuations between floods and droughts we have witnessed.

Our current inability to predict seasonal wet conditions makes it difficult to manage water supplies (we have to store more in wet winters to prepare for drier years), and to prepare for disasters (including unpredictable floods, like the one that just inundated San Diego). And conserve water. California agriculture, which provides food for the country.

But improving seasonal forecasts is easier said than done. Even the most advanced meteorologists fail to produce accurate seasonal forecasts. In fact, recently studies It suggests that we need to better understand the characteristics of the Pacific Ocean.

Determining the amount of rain or snow likely in California depends on forecasting atmospheric patterns over the North Pacific Ocean. To do this, meteorologists closely monitor sea surface temperatures in the South Pacific and phenomena known as El Niño and La Niña. Warm temperatures, or El Niño conditions, are thought to herald rainfall. The cold La Niña conditions are thought to indicate a dry winter.

but Search from The University of California and Jet Propulsion Laboratory have found that El Niño conditions do not explain most of our weather variability. To name a few, tropical Sea surface temperatures and conditions were very similar in 2021-22 and 2022-23, bThe first winter was dry and the second was one of our wettest winters.

According to the authors, to produce more accurate seasonal forecasts, scientists must learn more about “circulation anomalies” in the oceans. The study claimed that current climate models “show almost no skill in predicting these anomalies,” meaning they have “limited predictive skill for winter precipitation in California.”