FUTURE PONDERINGS
This is Silverlace Falls, about 30 ft. high. I camped here on my first night in the Yosemite Wilderness in June. It is a fascinating little slide on the Merced River but difficult to photograph because it is so wide. I did not have a super wide angle lens, which would have been nice. I still have not processed all my photos from the Yosemite trip, so you can still look forward to seeing more pics in the coming weeks.
This time of year (ie. Summer), I start to get very anxious about what the future may hold for next season. Will we have a good winter? Will we see another drought? It is already time to be praying for next year. In 2018, we had a weak La Nina, and as you know, we had a below average winter. The precipitation was about 80% of average for north and central California; the snow pack was only 50-60% of average in California. We also had a weak La Nina in 2017, but of course that was a huge year for us.
So what about 2019? It looks like we are going to have another El Nino next year, but before you get all excited (some people seem to always get excited when El Nino is mentioned), this will not be a strong El Nino. It looks like it will be a weak El Nino (possibly a moderate one). And what does a weak El Nino mean for snow fall next year? You should all know by now it does not mean anything! Remember that super strong El Nino we had a couple years ago and ALL the forecasters said we were going to have a huge year – but instead we only had an average winter that year (or just very slightly above average). Nonetheless, with that caveat in mind, I still like looking at historical events. We have had 11 weak El Ninos since 1950, and 5 of those were above average winters, 2 were average, and 4 were below average. Digging deeper, only one weak El Nino followed a weak La Nina event. That one was a below average winter. Six of the weak El Ninos followed a below average winter (what we just had), and four of those six gave us above average winters. For the moderate El Ninos, 3 out of 6 were above average. So as I said, it all means nothing! It seems to me, we have a 50 percent chance of a good winter in 2019. In other words, please pray!