During the winter months, the California drought duked it out with El Niño.
The fight seemed interesting enough at first. The drought was the four-year defending champion of California’s climate. El Niño—a band of relatively warm ocean water that develops every few years on the central and east-central portion of the Pacific Equator, bringing heavier rainfall to California—hadn’t been big since the ’90s, but meteorologists were predicting a miracle comeback.
No one expected El Niño to beat the drought, but we all hoped for a good fight. Unfortunately, it’s looking like El Niño’s throwing in the towel, meaning drought will reign for a fifth consecutive year in the Golden State—especially in the southern region.
“El Niño is a big disappointment for the southern half of California,” United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) meteorologist Brad Rippey said. “A lot of the areas of California you see are at this point unfortunately consigned to a fifth year of drought.”
From 2012 to 2015, rainfall at the Santa Maria Airport totaled 27.67 inches—only 55 percent of the average, which is 50.24 inches. Rippey said it’s as if Santa Maria received no rain for two of those four years.
Then 2016 rolled around, bringing hope that a strong El Niño might make a dent in Southern California’s rainfall deficit. And while January’s rainstorms might have felt like a lot, in reality our rainfall this year remains well below average so far.
Rippey said that in an average rainfall year, we would have seen more than 12 inches of rain between Oct. 1 and now—but at this point, we’ve only gotten 8.24 inches of rain.
“Against all conventional scientific wisdom,” Rippey said, “the storm track across the southern tier of the U.S. never became established like we typically see in strong El Niños.”
And now, the rainy season is winding down.
“It’s really too late to make it up,” Rippey said, referring to the rainfall deficit. “You’re still going to see a lot of drought impact.”
Santa Barbara County Water Agency Manager Fray Crease said the rainfall deficit will likely break local records.
“While our water year doesn’t end until the end of August, we’re on target to have the driest five-year period on record,” Crease said. The current record took place from 1947 to 1951, but unless Santa Maria receives another 8 inches of rain by August, the years 2012 to 2016 will soon break that record.
Even so, Crease pointed out incremental increases in rainfall over the past few years. To date, Santa Barbara County has received 70 percent of its normal rainfall this year. Last year, we only hit 55 percent, and in 2014 rainfall only reached 41 percent of normal.
But those increases aren’t enough.
According to the USDA drought monitor, Southern California is the only area of the United States in class D4, or “exceptional drought,” which is the most intense level. Drought this severe and prolonged tends to result in tree, vegetation, and wildlife die-offs. And even after rainfall stabilizes in the future, leftover dead vegetation will continue posing wildfire risks.
“That’s going to become an almost permanent issue as long as that fuel remains,” Rippey said. “You have continued risk of wildfires, the types of dangerous wildfires that spread rapidly and grow pretty large.”
Humans—especially those relying on reservoirs or groundwater—will struggle with water supply shortages, as well.
“Any local areas that are depending on local reservoirs, they really haven’t been replenished in Southern California, so they can be an issue, at least locally,” Rippey said. “The bigger cities will probably do well because their water is more geared toward receiving water from outside sources.”
Rippey said reservoir storage numbers in Southern California hit record lows from 1974 to 1977, and while reservoir levels in the current drought have approached those records, they haven’t broken them.
In Santa Barbara County, our big reservoirs are Cachuma and Gibraltar—both of which are currently running at low capacity. According to Crease, Cachuma hasn’t been full since April 2011—and without significant rainfall increase, its capacity will continue to decrease due to evaporation.
This is bad news for the Santa Ynez Valley, which relies on Cachuma for much of its water supply.
“The winter is wrapping up and there’s probably no relief in sight,” Crease said. “Residents probably will be asked, depending on their water purveyor, to continue their good conservation efforts.”
Meanwhile, the water purveyors will focus on finding alternative sources of water and not relying too heavily on the limited supply in groundwater basins.
“Having a good winter was something we were all hoping for, but I do know the local water purveyors have long-term water supply plans, El Niño or no El Niño,” Crease said.
Rippey said it would take a “robust wet season” to finally pull us out of the drought.
“The earliest possible significant drought relief for California would be looking ahead to the 2016-17 season,” he said.
But so far, it’s not looking terribly likely. If La Niña—El Niño’s drier counterpart—forms later this year, it would increase the odds of Southern California staying dry. Rippey said computer models are suggesting we will get La Niña this year, and we should know for sure by late summer.
Staff Writer Brenna Swanston can be reached at bswanston@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 14-21, 2016.