Signs show a massive El Niño is building

[Man of Distinction]

Source: KXTV via 9News.com

SACRAMENTO - There is growing evidence that California could see an even stronger El Niño event this winter than the one in 1997 that caused massive flooding across Northern California.

Stunning images from Japan's Imawari-8 Weather Satellite, just switched on on Tuesday, show what could become a historic El Niño in full bloom.

"Almost all models are showing consistency that we're seeing a stronger and stronger tendency for that to hold in place through the winter season. It could rival that of 1997," News10 Chief Meteorologist Monica Woods said.

In recent days, cyclones and typhoons, including one mammoth storm heading toward China with cloud cover the size of Texas, have helped shift the trade winds from west to east, pushing warm sub-surface water toward the coast of South America and making it all but certain an El Niño event will last at least through the fall.

Read more: http://www.9news.com/story/weather/2015/07/09/el-nino-weather-flooding-1997-satellite-images/29899151/

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I hope that helps the California drought. Colorado has had a drought for about 4-5 years, and now we're literally water-soaked and less drought than usual...

[bemildred]

1. Yep. We got monsoon weather in July.

Time to fix the roof.

[Warpy]

3. I wish I'd known this was going to happen, I'd have planted a garden this year

We've been in drought for over 20 years here so I haven't bothered and I miss it.

Nothing beats backyard tomatoes and broccoli.

[bemildred]

4. I have tomatoes, peppers, squash, growing endemically in my yard.

Plus avocado, lemon, nectarine, key lime, tangelo, and some herbs.

I like to make salsa with the tomatoes and peppers, throw in some garlic from the store.

I've had no luck with garlic, it grows but never robustly and it hates it when it gets hot. Same with Potatoes.

I have some little blue peppers from Bolivia that really don't wake up until it hits 90 deg, it's just starting to put on foliage now.

The squash is a Kubota hybrid, cooks up well with potatoes.

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But yeah, I didn't do much either, all I have is volunteers and holdovers. Dry year, have to conserve water, too much work.

[fed-up]

21. have you tried planting fall potatoes?

I am in Northern Central Sacramento Valley. We plant a fall crop of potatoes in mid-august, harvest as needed around November-December, for the best tasting potatoes ever. Try Nicola a good producer of yellow potatoes that love the cooler fall weather to grow. Garlic is planted between October and Dec to develop strong roots before the short/cold days of winter. It is harvested around the end of June before the heat of summer really arrives. Potatoes are harvested around the same time.

Try overhead watering your potatoes to keep them cool in the late spring/early summer. It also gives them a more thorough watering than t-tape or other drip system.

Both garlic and potatoes love to get fertilized during early growth, every few weeks.

I am hoping my well holds through the summer, pump is at 80', haven't checked water depth, but most likely is around 50', not 30' like before the drought! The farm I worked on had their ag well go dry last year in August, he connected to the house well to get through the summer. This year he has the permit for the well to get dug deeper, but is still waiting for the driller to come out, has been waiting at least 6 months!

[bvar22]

6. We planted this year in Central ARkansas,

on;y to watch the seedlings washed out by torrential rains that really haven't stopped since April.
On the few sunny days, the land was too wet to work.
Most of the locals have given up on their garden this year.
If the rain didn't wash out the plants, fungus, powder mildew, and early blight took care of the rest.

We "let go" of the first 1/2 of the growing season,
and are planning for a late Fall crop of beans & squash.
We might try a tomato...but it is getting awful late for those.

Good Luck to everyone else.
I hope I can post in the Fall with news about a better harvest.

[alittlelark]

7. I have a massive garden this year in Jemez Springs !!

It's my first year back in NM so I planted....drought or not !!!

Turns out to be one of our wettest years I expected to do alot more watering than I've had to this year.

[Le Taz Hot]

19. Look into Square Foot Gardening.

We put three 4 X 4 raised garden beds in 6 years ago, put soaker hoses and we have TONS of peppers, tomatoes, zucchini and melons (including 2 that we don't know what they are and didn't plant but they're growing great). Our water bill didn't go up at all and it's regularly in the triple digits here from June through September.

We built ours from scratch but I've seen kits at Big Lots! (not sure if you have those where you live) for under $20.00 a pop. You basically just snap them together and lay them down where you want them.

[Igel]

2. Handy summary.

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/impacts.html

Some claimed that Texas' May rains were ENSO related. They continued in June. Too early to talk about July. While summer ENSO-related rainfall is odd, it's as good a reason as most and better than many. Here's Houston rainfall graph for year at, IIRC, IAH:

[Lochloosa]

5. Good...more rain for Cali and fewer hurricanes here in Florida.

[Ruby the Liberal]

8. I can never keep the el nino la nina thing straight

Can someone help my east coast addled brain? Which one of these means more extreme weather and hurricanes on the Atlantic side of the country?

[Gormy Cuss]

9. La Nina n/t

[Ruby the Liberal]

10. Thank you

[BumRushDaShow]

12. Enso neutral to La Nina

tends to allow the hurricanes to blossom in the Atlantic. El Nino tends towards more shearing of them in the Atlantic and Gulf, and seems to coincide with more dry air blowing across the Atlantic from the coast of W. Africa that keeps the embryonic storm circulations disorganized.

2005 (the Katrina year) holds the record (28 named storms), and that year had ENSO neutral conditions (although last year was neutral and had a below-normal number of Atlantic hurricanes). But the effects of climate change are undeniable in terms of intensities.

[Ruby the Liberal]

13. Thanks!

[NBachers]

11. All that denuded California landscape is going to be in trouble.

[bemildred]

14. +1. nt

[Uncle Joe]

15. I remember one night, David Letterman called Johnny Carson and asked him, how was the weather

in California and Carson said "great the mudslides have put out the forest fires!"

Thanks for the thread, Man of Distinction.

[Judi Lynn]

18. Great line! n/t

[NickB79]

16. El Nino's, esp. big ones, absolutely destroy coral reefs

The 1998 super-El Nino event devastated coral reefs around the planet as the corals bleached and died in the hot water. Some areas still haven't recovered, and with ocean temps already high and acidity rising due to global warming, this one could be even more disastrous.

So while I'm happy the people and wildernesses of California may get some drought relief, I shudder to think what an El Nino supercharged by human climate change will do to other parts of the planet.

[blackspade]

17. Rapid shifts like this are bad.

Massive coastal erosion and soil loss will ruin more land.

[NutmegYankee]

20. I fear wild swings in weather will soon be the norm.