Catalina Cool Season (October-May) Was Slightly Above Average

Here’s a long term graph with a curve fit of the Catalina October through May precipitation beginning in 1977.

The Catalina record begins with an extraordinary wet spell in 1977-78 through the early 1980s, augmented by El Niñoes and possibly the Pinatubo eruption in the early 1990s. The initial wet spell was  associated with a shift in the so-called “Pacific Decadal Oscillation.”  The red line is a polynomial fit to the data.  It seems to suggest a recovery is underway from the overall drier winters of the early 2000s despite the 2020-21 Oct-May drought.  Will a recovery continue?  Is it real?

Author: Art Rangno

Retiree from a group specializing in airborne measurements of clouds and aerosols at the University of Washington (Cloud and Aerosol Research Group). The projects in which I participated were in many countries; from the Arctic to Brazil, from the Marshall Islands to South Africa.