San Luis Obispo County's rain year is nearly normal

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• Weather turning chilly and damp

  Weather turning chilly and damp

  San Luis Obispo County will see several chances for rain in coming days, but forecasters say any precipitation will be light.

  More notable is the end of the warm daytime temperatures. By Friday, the high in San Luis Obispo should be just 60 degrees, well off Sunday’s 88-degree reading.

  Local forecasting expert John Lindsey said the weather pattern currently reflects a classic La Niña, when drier-than-normal weather prevails.

• SLO County has driest December, January on record so far

  SLO County has driest December, January on record so far

  San Luis Obispo County is having its driest December and January since rain records were first kept in 1869, according to local forecaster John Lindsey.

  Since Nov. 21, only 0.18 of an inch of rain has been recorded at Cal Poly, the official home for local climatology. Through Friday, 5.5 inches of rain should have been measured, he said. Put another way, Lindsey added, only 3 percent of normal rainfall has fallen since Nov. 21.

  “January is not over with, and we might be in for some rain in the last week of January, so that record probably won’t hold up … but if the pattern holds to the end of January, it will be the driest we have ever seen,” said Lindsey, a community relations specialist with PG&E who has been forecasting local weather for more than 20 years.

• SLO wasn't very wet in January

  SLO wasn't very wet in January

  Only about half the normal amount of rain fell in San Luis Obispo in January, which usually is one of the biggest months of the year for precipitation.

  It is the same situation so far for the 2011-12 rain year that ends in June — slightly more than half the normal rainfall has occurred, according to an analysis by John Lindsey, who has been forecasting local weather for more than 20 years.

  Cal Poly, the official home for weather keeping in San Luis Obispo, recorded 2.89 inches of rain in January. That’s 56 percent of the normal total for the month.

• End of La Niña could bring rain to SLO County later this month

  End of La Niña could bring rain to SLO County later this month

  The sprinkling of rain that came Tuesday did little to alleviate San Luis Obispo County’s dry conditions, but a change in the long-term weather pattern may bring some relief.

  A more normal wet winter weather pattern should begin to develop later this month as a persistent La Niña breaks down, said John Lindsey, PG&E community relations specialist.

  The La Niña phenomenon is characterized by lower surface temperatures in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This often drives the Pacific storm track to the north, resulting in drought conditions in the southern part of the country.

• La Niña likely to grow stronger this winter

  La Niña likely to grow stronger this winter

  Long-range weather predictions are notoriously inaccurate. Most weather models will give you predictions out no more than 10 days. However, what if you want guidance for months out?

  You can turn to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, with its predictions about the El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, or to alternative folk claims of uncertain accuracy.

  One of the key influences on our weather is El Niño and its sister, La Niña, which are triggered by changing conditions in the Pacific Ocean. NOAA recently predicted that the current La Niña will continue to strengthen into this winter. This condition produces cooler surface seawater temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.