Just because El Niño may be lurking off in the tropical Pacific, does that really offer much of a clue about what kind of rainy season California can expect in Water Year 2019?

Will a river of storms pound the state, swelling streams and packing the mountains with deep layers of heavy snow much like the exceptionally wet 2017 Water Year (Oct. 1, 2016 to Sept. 30, 2017)? Or will this winter sputter along like last winter, leaving California with a second dry year and the possibility of another potential drought? What can reliably be said about the prospects for Water Year 2019?

At Water Year 2019: Feast or Famine?, a one-day event on Dec. 5 in Irvine, water managers and anyone else interested in this topic will learn about what is and isn’t known about forecasting California’s winter precipitation weeks to months ahead, the skill of present forecasts and ongoing research to develop predictive ability.

Bringing together research meteorologists and climate scientists, the event also will feature current information about experimental forecasts of atmospheric rivers and winter blocking conditions as well as preliminary research for the Colorado River Basin, which has been suffering through nearly two decades of dry conditions.

Click here for more information and to register.

This special event is sponsored by the California Department of Water Resources and the Water Education Foundation in partnership with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.