El Nino is still with us...

9/8/2017 (Permalink)

El Nino is hanging around.

El Nino's Affects Ocean Currents

The news was filled with stories about this being an El Nino year in 2016.  Yes, it is was a declared and official El Nino year. While the weather news is all about Hurricanes, recently meteorologists have extended their forecasts to say that the El Nino event could effect us in the fall of 2017 and winter of 2018.

That news means rain, right?  Not necessarily. El Nino is a current of warm water in the Pacific Ocean near the Equator. The current often causes warm waters to flow along the South American coast and northward to Central America, Mexico and California. El Nino events can be dry or wet depending on other circumstances involving air currents and areas of high and low pressure systems. Even with today’s advanced science long rang forecasting is tricky.

In the past 14 declared El Nino events only three have brought heavy rains. For many of us who lived in Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City or Foster City in 1997 we remember that was the year when a Strong El Nino season brought a deluge of rain and flooding to our area.  Waves battered the coast in Half Moon Bay and Pacifica. Small mudslides happened in various places in the Peninsula hills and lowlands flooded when a record high tide and rain occurred at the same time.

There are similarities to this year’s El Nino in what took place in the time leading up to the heavy winds, tidal flooding and rain storms that caused so much damage to the Peninsula, East Bay and most of Northern California.

In 1997, just like this year, a warm current caused crabs and other sea life to wash up onto California beaches. A huge algae bloom grew in the ocean from Mexico all the way to Alaska. These things have happened again in 2015. One other indicator of potential heavy rains is what happens with the Monsoon season in Arizona. Big Monsoon rains in that region happened in 1997 and they are happening again this year! 

Perhaps the most significant indictor concerning potential heavy rains from this year’s El Nino is the fact that several years of drought preceded all three El Nino rain years in the past. In fact, each of these three former El Nino rain events brought droughts to an end.  We have a drought now and we need it to end.

In 1997 I remember seeing flooding in Hillsborough along Crystal Springs Creek.  I saw people in kayaks playing in flooded parking lots along El Camino Real in Belmont. My water damage cleanup company responded to flooding in buildings along the Bay Shore in Redwood City and elsewhere. We also cleaned up after fallen trees in San Mateo and Atherton.

We never really know if this will be a heavy rain year until it happens. But, I invite you to be prepared in case it does.  Blog written by Clayton Barry. For more information or to register for our class, call 650-591-4137. We will be ready for our clients.