El Nino

spennie · Joined: 13 Oct 1995 Posts: 975 Location: Thousand Oaks, CA

The NWS seems to agree that an El Nino is coming! Great news for the Left Coast, it means we'll get some rain, finally! From their website:

Next ENSO Update: July 10
NOAA's National Weather Service indicates El Niño may develop as early as summer or fall 2014. Typical El Niño impacts in the U.S. include above-average rainfall in the West and suppressed hurricane activity in the East, although neither is guaranteed and largely dependent on El Niño's strength.

Not positive what this means wind-wise, but I'm thinking more storms = more wind, right?

jp5 · Joined: 19 May 1998 Posts: 3394 Location: OnUr6

What I remember about the 97/98 El Nino was a lot of rain and really, really big surf. Typical storm winds of 12 gusting 40 making sailing difficult.

gregorvass · Joined: 21 Nov 1996 Posts: 1113 Location: Behind You

El Nino Summary

Summer No Wind
Fall No Wind and Rain
Winter Some Wind and Rain
Spring Good Wind more F....rain.
Chocolate Water............great local snow.

Surf was all time 365.

P&O

MrFish · Joined: 04 Sep 2009 Posts: 248

What I'm reading is that though it is probably still looking like an El Nino year, it is not looking like a very strong El Nino anymore, compared to 97/98 (the last one)

allen · Joined: 13 Aug 1996 Posts: 237

I remember braking 3 masts at Cabrillo in '98 from March to July. I had just moved to LA and thought, wow, windsurfing was now going to be very expensive.

spennie · Joined: 13 Oct 1995 Posts: 975 Location: Thousand Oaks, CA

Mr. Fish: They seem non-comittal at this point, and want to wait until October to really make a call. I'm just tossing it out there for discussion, and hoping like hell!

Here's a cool link to L.A. rainfall amounts starting in 1877! It wouldn't work for me in Explorer, had to switch to Chrome.
http://www.net-comber.com/larain.html

I recommend starting with "SEASON Total-descending" at the bottom and going on from there. Pretty interesting & fun! 2004-5 was the second rainiest season ever, with 1997-8's El Nino coming in 7th.

MalibuGuru · Joined: 11 Nov 1993 Posts: 9300

We had tremendous southern swell activity during the "El Nino" years. The photo Gregor posted showed the kind of surf we got back then. (on occasion) 17 years later, I'll be a little more careful!! Laughing

BTW, Gregor, those were the best sailing days here in So Cal.

MrFish · Joined: 04 Sep 2009 Posts: 248