The Dry Garden: Gambling on a cool summer

This week’s Dry Garden posts early because of May rain. After brief chivvying of So Cal gardeners to weed and sow, I get to the dark art of forecasting. For help assessing the odds of a cool summer as opposed to a hot one, and an early summer as opposed to late one, I contacted Jet Propulsion Laboratory oceanographer Bill Patzert. Some of you may remember that in September he put 80% to 90% odds on a strong cooling of equatorial waters in the Pacific, a system known as La Niña, producing winter drought for Southern California.

After nearly record rains in December, and a Christmas dinner of crow instead of turkey, he knew that Southern California ended up on the lucky side of La Niña’s traditional cutoff somewhere between San Diego and the Oregon border. This system tends to drive rain north and keep the south dry, but we

And May brings… rain

Late spring rain forecast for Los Angeles, CA for May 17-18, 2011

Rain and snow in LA and Vegas

As fun as it is when it rains on celebrities at the Oscars, this year it looks like we will merely see the pencil-thin starlets shiver. The above icons in descending order represent the current National Weather Service forecasts for greater Los Angeles foothills, basin and coast respectively. Click here or on the top row of icons to be taken to the National Weather Service website. From Ken Clark’s AccuWeather blog forecast for Los Angeles: “A little rain could break out as early as Friday afternoon, especially from the Los Angeles Basin on north. But the most rain occurs Friday night, then becomes showery Saturday into early Saturday night with a couple of thunderstorms possible as well. Snow levels initially will be around 3,000 to 3,500 feet Friday night, locally lower interior mountains. Snow levels fall late Friday night and Saturday bottoming out at between 1,000 and 1,500 feet, but

Jackie Johnson, observed

Forget your taxes, forget whatever undone Friday task that mocks you this Monday morning, go straight to LA Observed, where Kevin Roderick has embedded a Parry Gripp song dedicated to Los Angeles weather girl Jackie Johnson. If that doesn’t make you love silliness, then in the Life is Good department, consider that gentle, almost continuous showers last night, about 3/4 of an inch of water as if laid down by a mister, nudged the rainfall total in Los Angeles to just above normal at 15.98 inches. Click here for National Weather Service rainfall data for across greater Los Angeles.

Elsewhere in the real world, Groksurf has a nifty round-up of San Diego water news and Aquafornia leads with this very good Associated Press story on Lynda and Stewart Resnick, which was inspired by a recent lawsuit. My favorite line about the billionaire who is trying to overturn the Endangered

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    Emily Green by e-mail at emily.green [at] mac.com
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