El Niño Friend Or Foe?
Last updated 10/13/2015 at 10:20am
According to the National Weather Service, the chances are increasing that this year’s El Niño will be one of the strongest since record-keeping began in 1950.
Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory predicts this El Niño is “too big to fail.” He further added that El Niño may seem like a savior but if intense floods and mud-slides occur, it’s “not going to look like the great wet hope charging across the landscape on a white horse.”
In the 1997-1998 El Niño, 17 people where killed, crops were wiped out, highways were washed out, and houses were pushed off hillside foundations.
Warnings to prepare for large storms have been issued to public agencies in California. Kelly Huston, deputy director with the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said, “If it downpours heavily over a short period of time, it’s going to be dangerous, not just a welcome relief perceived to be helping the drought.”
