A huge El Nino could devastate Southern California | Emergency Preparedness | Forums

man, California can't catch a break

It started in October 1997 in Mexico, when a hurricane fueled by El Niño slammed into Acapulco, causing massive flooding and hundreds of deaths.

A few weeks later, storms started hitting Southern California. Then in December, the skies opened up in Orange County in what meteorologists described as the biggest rainstorm in a century. More than seven inches fell in parts of south Orange County in one day. Mobile home parks in Huntington Beach flooded, forcing rescuers to use inflatable boats and a catamaran to rescue residents. Mudslides destroyed hillside homes. Neighborhoods flooded. Major roads were made impassable by debris.

And that was just the beginning. Over the next few months, a series of powerful storms caused havoc, washing away roads and railroad tracks, overflowing flood control channels, causing 17 deaths and more than half a billion dollars in damage in California. The toll was far worse in Mexico, where Tijuana and other cities faced crippling flooding.

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The importance of the El Niño storm of 1997-98 is now coming into focus as scientists say the weather pattern is returning to Southern California with a vengeance.

The strengthening El Niño in the Pacific Ocean has the potential to become one of the most powerful on record, as warming ocean waters surge toward the Americas, setting up a pattern that could bring once-in-a-generation storms this winter to drought-parched California.

The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center said Thursday that all computer models are now predicting a strong El Niño to peak in the late fall or early winter. A host of observations have led scientists to conclude that “collectively, these atmospheric and oceanic features reflect a significant and strengthening El Niño.”

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