El Niño is an anomalous, though periodical, warming of the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific Ocean. For those living in California, that means a wetter winter.
The National Weather Service expects El Niño to bring greater than average rainfall to virtually all of California, forecasters said.
Forecasters feared that the rain from El Niño would solely affect Southern California leaving those in the north only enough to ease the pain of the drought we face today.
Forecasters say that this El Niño will be the strongest in recorded history. However, Northern California needs twice as much precipitation to even fight the drought.
The new forecast shows that El Niño will bring big storms to Southern California to as much as 60 percent, and also to the San Francisco/Sacramento area with a 40 percent wetter than average rainy winter.
A big concern for those in California was the absence of snow that provides water for California’s reservoirs. Snow is California’s natural water storage system. The snow, when melted through the summer, runs through the rivers and aqueducts. Unfortunately, there has been no snowpack in 2015.
With the new details that came from the National Weather Service, the chance of snow and rain has raised. The shifts in weather from hot to cold are all due to El Niño, but it was feared that it will bring little rain for all the farmers in California.
Though California will get rain, it will not be enough to end the drought.
“No matter how much rain we get, even a little is good for those of us who live here,” said Maria Hernandez (senior, Communications), “It’s depressing hearing and seeing what’s on the news. El Niño couldn’t have come at a more perfect time.”
Local farmers are eager for the rain as well. “We need rain bad,” said Marie Rodin, owner of Rodin Ranch Farmers Market in Downtown Modesto, “but everything needs water, not just almonds, it affects us all in the valley and everyone is waiting to get more wells on their properties to prepare.”
The demand for wells have increased with the drought and farmers have been searching deeper underground to find a solution. In past times, a well that was several hundred feet would be enough for farmers to get water, but there are some farms now drilling up to 20,000 feet in hopes of falling water levels.
The wells in which farmers are investing are able to help regain the groundwater that as been lost in recent years, and the wait list for those who want to put wells on their farms are over a year long.
El Niño is predicted to last from winter of, 2015 to the spring of 2016.