More drought

The LA Times has an interesting article which raises the concern that we are in the first year of a multi-year drought. Colorado River Basin water, snow pack, and precipitation have all been at record lows in the past year. The article states that drought conditions here are usually coincident with distinct weather patterns elsewhere, a correlation that has again been observed in the past year. It also states that global warming patterns creating an upwelling of cold water in the eastern Pacific mimic conditions thought to have been present during a mega drought between 1300 and 900 AD:

"Bill Patzert, the climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, has said the Pacific is in an "El Niño-repellent" pattern that will favor drought in Southern California for years.

MacDonald said scientists have found that periods of simultaneous drought in Southern California, Northern California's Sacramento River Basin and the Colorado typically have been marked by cold water in the eastern Pacific off the North American coast — a condition that existed this winter."

The article urges calm:

We're watching this. We're not pleased. We're not worried, either," said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the region's major water wholesaler. "If it does continue, we have prepared ourselves for a multiple-year drought.

Remember, you heard it here first.