El Niño rain forecast to reappear on N. Coast

Some disgruntled, rain-anticipating North Coast residents have groused that El Niño has been asleep for the past month. However, forecasters predict the volatile weather pattern soon will wake up and demand attention.

As Brett Rathbun, AccuWeather.com meteorologist posted on Tuesday, March 2, “A shift in the weather pattern” will allow “several storms to soak the state during the second week of March. Enough rain may fall to put a noticeable dent in the drought across the state.”

The storm door is about to open, according to weather-model readings interpreted early Wednesday, March 3, by PG&E meteorologist John Lindsey.

He predicted then that Central Coast beaches and coastal valleys could receive between 4 and 10 inches of rain in the eight days from March 3-10, with rain potential over the Santa Lucia range at more than 12 inches.

“Wet indeed!” he said in his emailed forecast that included North County inland rainfall predictions of up to 6 inches.

Lindsey also predicted southerly winds from 32 to 46 mph Saturday night into Sunday and Monday afternoon and night along the coastline, with gusts up to 55 mph.

“More heavy rain is expected next Wednesday and Thursday,” he wrote, adding that “longer-range models continue to suggest the active pattern will continue through the second week of March as the storm door swings wide open.”

The official National Weather Service/Oxnard office forecast posted at 3:18 a.m. Wednesday, March 2, didn’t seem quite as vigorous, indicating heavy rain Saturday night and rain Sunday morning.

The rest of the forecast through Tuesday called for precipitation chances of from 20 to 70 percent, depending on the day, with an indication that the rainfall would be in the form of showers.

However the predicted precipitation is defined, it will be welcomed by water purveyors, gardeners, firefighters and others who have been concerned about the area’s warm, dry and mostly clear February, which is often one of California’s wettest months during an El Niño year.

Recorded data from equipment based in Cambria’s sewage-treatment plant on Heath Lane showed only 0.32 of an inch of rainfall (all on one day) during February.

County supervisors are scheduled to get their monthly drought report during their March 8 meeting.

By then, they’ll also know how much rainfall the early March storms, and El Niño, brought to the area.

This story was originally published March 2, 2016 at 10:33 AM with the headline "El Niño rain forecast to reappear on N. Coast."