El Nino to Bring Relief, Not Cure, to Calif. Drought

Two of California’s wettest years in 1982-1983 and 1997-98, occurred during El Nino events, but so did the state’s two driest years, said research meteorologist Martin Hoerling, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth Systems Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. The question is whether this year’s El Nino, which is shaping up to be the strongest in 18 years, will be a drought-buster, Hoerling said said at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco...Computer simulations show that strong El Ninos do raise the prospect of more rain for California, but even an especially wet winter and spring will probably not be enough to end the state’s drought, Hoerling said.