2019 - 2020: Normal Winter

Shasta Lake (California's largest reservoir) last week (Chron photo)

Good news: meteorologist Michael Pechner predicts a normal winter, that is, no drought for this year.

A review of the state’s reservoir system last week with the Department of Water Resources showed that 154 significant reservoirs are 114% of average for the date...

“I’m looking at a pretty normal winter from here on out,” Pechner said, allowing for local anomalies that occur across the region.

Pechner’s long-range outlooks have been spot-on for three years running, and this winter, have contrasted against many outlooks in late summer and fall that called for drought in Northern California.

BTW, the old thinking was that global warming was responsible for extended California droughts. The new thinking is that global warming melts Arctic ice and triggers wet weather:

The [Scripps] study provides evidence that the melting ice sets in motion a chain of events, including major disruptions in wind and weather patterns at the equator and in the central Pacific Ocean. That, in turn, can trigger El Niño weather events and the violent “atmospheric rivers” that bring deluges of rain, sometimes causing havoc in the Bay Area.

The changes in atmospheric convection documented in the report could also influence occasional balmy periods during California winters that coincide with record cold in the Midwest, said Charles Kennel, a physicist and the former director of the Scripps Institution, which is based at UC San Diego.

Global warming Climate change causes droughts, record heat, and wildfires. It also causes rainstorms, snow, and record cold. There's nothing it can't do.