Winter is coming and it’s expected to be hot and humid in California, according to new data.
In a winter report released Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provided national temperature and precipitation forecasts for December, January and February.
“As we know from decades of observations, a very strong El Nino will likely cause the jet stream to shift south and east for the contiguous United States, tipping the scales toward stormier weather conditions in the South,” Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, said in a statement. “While higher chances of rain and snow can bring relief to drought-affected areas, too much precipitation on dry soils can fuel flash floods and destructive mudslides. Now is the time for communities and individuals to plan for the winter ahead.”
In California, meteorologists expect El Niño to tip the scales in favor of a wetter season, especially in the southern part of the state. Indeed, the outlook shows there is a 50 to 60 percent chance of above-normal precipitation across much of California, from the Bay Area to the southern border. North of the Bay Area, this probability drops to between 40 and 50 percent; and in the northernmost part of the state, it’s between 33 and 40 percent.
As for temperature, the outlook generally expects Northern California and part of the South Coast to be warm. But temperatures in the southernmost region will be variable. For the snowpack, warmer than normal temperatures could mean precipitation will fall as rain rather than snow at lower and mid elevations. But higher elevations could form a significant snowpack.
Daniel Swain, a climatologist in the University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources group, offered his own assessment of the coming winter on Monday, using a variety of data. The likelihood of a wetter-than-average winter in California is “extremely high by historical standards,” he wrote, with a probability greater than 90% statewide.
As El Niño continues to strengthen in the tropics, it has already begun to appear in California’s seas, but its peak weather impacts have not yet arrived. Swain says this will likely happen around December and persist until at least March 2027.
“Don’t be surprised if October, and even November, are pretty unremarkable when it comes to storm activity in California and the Southwest; it could be wet, it could be dry, and right now there just isn’t much of a signal one way or the other,” Swain wrote. “But what happens this fall has no bearing on what is likely to happen increasingly this winter.”
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