It's that warm water off the coast, which anecdotally is warmer than last year. It's not part of the warm spot in the Pacific that denotes El Nino, and apparently it could even be its enemy.
According to this WAPost piece, it's known as The Blob, and is responsible for blocking moisture coming ashore:
That pool of incredibly warm ocean water was a major player in the weather over western North America this past winter. A strong ridge of high pressure was parked over the region, keeping things warm and dry from California to Alaska. It was a tangled feedback process between hot, dry soil, the strong ridge, and the blob — all working together to enhance the ridge itself, leading to more hot, dry weather. The wintertime pattern has been so domineering that West Coast meteorologists dubbed it the “ridiculously resilient ridge.”
This was particularly evident hereabouts, especially when there was rain all around us and none falling here. Still, we had a wet December, which saved us after the almost totally dry previous winter. The Blob was not present for the last super El Nino that did in fact bring a lot of rain here, in 1996-7. It may not be enough to keep all the rain away this winter...fingers crossed. But it illustrates the problems of the climate crisis--while some new factors may combine and others offset, there are new synergies with two and three new factors involved. The chances of these combining for good outcomes becomes smaller and smaller.
Meanwhile, warm river waters in Oregon are killing half the sockeye salmon migrating on the Columbia. I suspect this is just the first such story. Warmer ocean water doesn't help either. Climate changed hotter air plus the drought and the lack of cooling snowmelt in the rivers are preventing salmon from spawning. Salmon fishers here on the North Coast were already pessimistic.
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