Climate in Crisis: Increasing Drought, La Niña & Rain Outlook

We’re all looking and wanting anything that looks like a “normal” rain season but that may not be in the cards for us over the next several months. 

As our drought continues it looks like we’ll have two key factors that will play into our Bay Area rain season.  The first one is La Niña, which tends to set off extremes in Bay Area weather.  The second is known as “precipitation whiplash” and that’s related to climate change which can also set off weather extremes. 

So, what would this look like or potentially bring?  Well, it could look a lot like last year (see the bar graph below), if you remember back we had strong record setting storms in 2021 October & December and then extended periods of record drying into January. 

It may not happen in that exact order but be ready for these potentially frustrating trends.

As these extremes have set in over the Bay Area our drought has returned and you might be surprised to see how much drought we have experienced the past 2 decades.  Look at the data below and you’ll see drought 2001-2005, 2007-2010, 2012-2017 and 2020 to current. While droughts are nothing new to California's history the intensity of droughts has been increasing most recently.

Drought conditions have now occurred 77% of the time since the year 2000 as warming temperatures brings more drought potential.

So the big question now, what about rain chances? Looking ahead I’m seeing what could be our first possible system by late September. Right now it looks like best chances would be towards California and Oregon border with some shower chances to the Bay Area. 

We’ll of course have more updates as we get closer.

The good news, new research shows we can all make a difference and avoid these consequences from getting worse with substantial cuts in emissions and greenhouse gases. This is something we can all participate in by lowering our carbon footprint. 

You can find more on all of our climate stories in this link.