{"id":5450,"date":"2015-09-09T09:25:06","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T13:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/?p=5450"},"modified":"2025-06-11T12:51:30","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T16:51:30","slug":"why-a-godzilla-el-nino-wont-end-californias-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/2015\/09\/09\/why-a-godzilla-el-nino-wont-end-californias-drought\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a &#8220;Godzilla&#8221; El Ni\u00f1o won&#8217;t end California&#8217;s drought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/52\/files\/2015\/09\/3086243920_a24e9430f2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-5451 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/52\/files\/2015\/09\/3086243920_a24e9430f2-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"rain on farm\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/52\/files\/2015\/09\/3086243920_a24e9430f2-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/52\/files\/2015\/09\/3086243920_a24e9430f2.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>The original version of this post appeared on EDF\u2019s <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.edf.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/27\/why-godzilla-el-nino-wont-end-californias-drought\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Voices<\/em><\/a><em> blog.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>An El Ni\u00f1o advisory is now official, and scientists suggest there is a greater than a 90-percent chance that it will arrive this winter.<\/p>\n<p>They also believe the developing El Ni\u00f1o could become one of the most powerful on record\u00a0\u2013\u00a0rivaling its 1997-98 predecessor, which sent California twice as much rain and the Sierra Nevada double the snowpack it usually gets.<\/p>\n<p>So news of another El Ni\u00f1o may sound like a blessing for California farmers, who help make the state the world\u2019s eighth-largest economy, as they suffer through the worst drought in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.edf.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/13\/worst-megadrought-1000-years-could-cripple-our-economy\" target=\"_blank\">more than a millennium<\/a>.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the impending weather phenomenon won\u2019t reverse the drought \u2013 and\u00a0here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>There is a strong chance the rain won\u2019t show.\u00a0<\/strong>The 1997-98 Western storms may be fresh in mind,\u00a0but with conditions similar to what we\u2019re seeing this year, California as a state may, in fact, be getting less rain than it normally does. Historically, this has been true with nearly half of such El Ni\u00f1os. And even if Southern California gets above-average rainfall, as it often has in the past, that would do little to fill the state\u2019s northern reservoirs, which\u00a0 store water\u00a0 for much of the\u00a0 state\u2019s farms.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Too much rain at once can be problematic.\u00a0<\/strong>The ground can\u2019t absorb massive rainfall quick enough, so most of the rain washes into streams and rivers \u2013 and eventually the ocean \u2013 instead of replenishing the groundwater table. The lack of absorption also means more flooding, mudslides and other emergencies.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Years of drought can\u2019t be erased by a single, wet season.\u00a0<\/strong>Drought is a water-balance issue, and the deficit in water has been piling up for four years. It is unlikely that a season or two of more rainfall than usual will\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.edf.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/14\/dont-blame-almonds-california-drought-needs-real-solutions\">make up the difference<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>El Ni\u00f1o will bring along record heat.\u00a0<\/strong>This will exacerbate drought conditions and lead to less snow in the mountains, which perpetuates the cycle of drought.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So what will it take to end the drought and get California back in balance?<\/p>\n<p>To end the drought, we need Mother Nature to shift some meteorological and oceanic conditions that we have no control over.<\/p>\n<p>But there are <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/2015\/07\/01\/3-investment-ideas-to-sustain-water-in-the-american-west\/#more-5174\" target=\"_blank\">measures we can pursue<\/a> to get California back in balance \u2013 such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/2015\/06\/25\/its-official-rice-farmers-now-eligible-for-carbon-offset-payments\/\" target=\"_blank\">Reducing greenhouse gas emissions<\/a> to slow warming rates. (Climate change may be\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.edf.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/02\/how-scientists-linked-california-drought-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\">playing a significant role<\/a>\u00a0in the drought by altering the jet stream through warming in the Arctic.)<\/li>\n<li>Accelerating the development of sustainable groundwater management plans.<\/li>\n<li>Recharging aquifers.<\/li>\n<li>Improving water-use efficiency and implementation of water markets so water can be transferred from lower value to higher value uses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These measures won\u2019t stop an El Nino this winter, but they will help us weather an unpredictable future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The original version of this post appeared on EDF\u2019s Voices blog. An El Ni\u00f1o advisory is now official, and scientists suggest there is a greater than a 90-percent chance that it will arrive this winter. They also believe the developing El Ni\u00f1o could become one of the most powerful on record\u00a0\u2013\u00a0rivaling its 1997-98 predecessor, which &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40054,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71922],"tags":[75680,200,84754,190,75678,42756,202,75679,84809],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-water","tag-aquifers","tag-california","tag-climate-tag","tag-drought","tag-el-nino","tag-farmers","tag-greenhouse-gas-emissions","tag-sierra-nevada","tag-water-use"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40054"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16033,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5450\/revisions\/16033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5450"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}