Swain quoted in The Washington Post on current El Nino system
For months — for four years, really — California has been dying for a drink. Repeated dry winters and scorching hot summers have depleted reservoirs and river systems and set fire to much of the landscape.
But now that the rain might finally be coming, carried along by an El Niño that promises to be one of the strongest in recent history, the land isn’t ready to absorb it. The same drought that makes the state so desperate for water has also baked the earth and denuded the landscape. Forests that once strengthened the soil and soaked up rainfall have been obliterated by fire.
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"What happens this winter is definitely going to be interesting,” Stanford University climate scientist Daniel Swain told the Times this summer. “And it’s not entirely clear whether California wins or loses."
