We moved from Pittsburgh to Arcata, CA in the fall of 1996. We knew that wet weather prevailed in the winter months especially (though statistically, Arcata got about as much annual sunshine as Pittsburgh.) At first the late September and October weather was wonderful, with a characteristic combination of cool air and warm sun. But then the rains came in the annual winter rainy season, with storms particularly at the end of December and into January. Sheets of persistent hard rain, blasts of wind, flooding streets.
The rain was even more pronounced the following winter. Several small towns to our south were flooded and buried under mud and debris sliding down denuded mountains. One town was practically wiped out. We bought rain parkas that covered us from the top of our heads down to our shoes. Mine was black--Margaret said I looked like Darth Vader. Hers was red--I called her Gumby. We figured that's what winters were like here.
What we didn't figure, or know, is that we'd arrived in time for an unusually large El Nino, which peaked that second winter of 97-98. We've had rainy winters since, but never like that--never with those persistent downpours and frequent storms.
Now ever since mid-summer we've been warned that an even stronger El Nino is coming this winter--the most powerful in modern times-- which will continue to influence our weather well into the summer. Our state senator held an online seminar in July, and the participating government meteorologist, who started out all objective and technical, was clearly anxious as it went on, and said he did not know what to expect exactly, but he feared we'd experience effects we'd never seen before.
This El Nino is also arriving at the same time as two other ocean cycles would be raising sea levels even in a normal year, but are being supercharged by this monster El Nino. One of these is something called the Kelvin Wave, which is due to arrive along the California coast any day now. Predictions of immediate sea level rise have varied from 6 inches to two feet. These levels will stay that way for months. That's something few if any of us has seen, and nobody seems to know exactly what the outcomes will be. In our area, residents of low-lying areas are urged to prepare and even attend training sessions. Together with El Nino and whatever storms it may bring, California may experience the highest sea levels it has ever recorded.
Southern California is already being affected, with beachfront property threatened or destroyed. (The photo above is from southern CA, as are the photos below.) The San Francisco Bay Area is considered particularly vulnerable to quick sea level rise. Governor Newsom issued a disaster declaration to free up funds for localities to prepare for flooding threats.
Up here in the far rural north of the state, we don't often get included in the major media forecasts. We may get lots of rain and storms with high winds--worse even perhaps than 97-98-- which could lead to flooding and damaging slides. We live only a mile or two from the ocean but we're on fairly high ground, so our most likely problems would be associated with inaccessible roads and long power outages. El Nino is depressing hurricanes in the Atlantic but tropical storms (called hurricanes or typhoons, depending where in the Pacific they originate) are already lining up in the Pacific, with unknown consequences for the California coast.
However this very rainy winter is not guaranteed here. Depending on where in the Pacific the El Nino is centered, it might mean the rain bypasses us, and so we might eventually face heightened risk of forest fires. None of this is likely to be as severe as the El Nino consequences in places like Africa which are likely to be stricken with suffocating heat and drought. Millions died there the last El Nino that was closest to the unprecedented strength of this one, and it is already predicted that nearly a half million people will die this time.
Other parts of this country are likely to suffer other consequences, and perhaps already are. Another factor that is unlikely to help is the depleted ability of the federal government to act, including the sharp decline in skilled personnel in the agencies responsible for predicting weather and monitoring climate and its complex constituents, willfully and unnecessarily created by the Chaos administration.
But there is another sobering element to this El Nino and its effects. Normally, however bad the effects and however many months they last, the storm can be weathered--when it's over, it's over. But probably not this time. Sea level rise is likely to erode beaches to an unknown extent. Some of that beachfront is disappearing into the ocean. It's long been predicted that the climate crisis will literally erase all the beaches of the world in the coming decades. We may get a taste of that this year--perhaps this month. And even if sea levels subside this time, there is unlikely to be time enough for the beaches to recover completely. We're just getting a jump start on the future.
Similarly, El Nino is predicted to make for an even hotter summer in many places, even though several months this past summer broke temperature records, including global records. Some climatologists say it will be a preview of what a normal summer is likely to be a decade from now.
Other parts of the country are being warned of other El Nino consequences this winter, including polar vortex cold in the deep south (some of that already on its way into the Midwest.) Possibly one blessing of this sneak preview is information that may lead to better ability to predict consequences in specific places, so they can prepare better for the climate distortion future, now fast upon us.
