Studies show that in the 2011-2012 winter season, the state of California received nearly 300 inches less snowfall than it did the previous winter. While many of California’s dry winters are a direct result of ridges off of the west coast, climatologists suggest the drop in precipitation during the 2011-2012 winter was due to below average sea surface temperatures, or La Niña (Seager et al.). La Niña is the result of cooling sea surface temperatures that lead to an overall temperature of the Pacific Ocean that is below average. These below-average temperatures led to a decrease in precipitation over the central region of the Pacific Ocean (L’Heureux, Becker, DiLiberto, Barnston, and Lindsey). According to Richard Seager et al. in their 2015
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The 2012-2013 winter season was just as dry as the previous one. However, La Niña was not to blame for this incident. Studies suggest that a high-pressure ridge just off the west coast of the United States of America is the reason such widespread drought conditions proceeded into California’s 2012-2013 winter (Wang, Hipps, Gillies, and Yoon). Since the amount of moisture in the Pacific Ocean directly affects the amount of precipitation California receives, the more moisture in the Pacific, the more rainfall in the west coastal region. In the 2012-2013 winter, the Pacific Ocean contained a surplus of moisture, yet California’s precipitation levels remained below average. Pedro DiNezio and Yuko Okumura in “Early Years of California’s Drought” reported, “The below-average precipitation is connected to a large ridge of high pressure looming offshore, blocking moisture-laden storms from traveling through California.” According to Dan Baum in his Scientific American publication “Change of State,” “Such high-pressure jet stream-blocking ridges are common off the coast of California, but usually they dissipate within a few weeks, when storms break them apart.” During the winter, many storms tried to sever the high-pressure ridge, but instead of disappearing like most ridges would, it reassembled and became larger (Baum.) Brian Palmer in “Climate Change vs. The Blob” states that the “…high-pressure system had several effects,” one of which being the rerouting of westward storms which continued California’s deprivation of precipitation. The ridge not only continued California’s dry spell, it also created a new problem positioned just off the western coast of the United
The 2012-2013 winter season was just as dry as the previous one. However, La Niña was not to blame for this incident. Studies suggest that a high-pressure ridge just off the west coast of the United States of America is the reason such widespread drought conditions proceeded into California’s 2012-2013 winter (Wang, Hipps, Gillies, and Yoon). Since the amount of moisture in the Pacific Ocean directly affects the amount of precipitation California receives, the more moisture in the Pacific, the more rainfall in the west coastal region. In the 2012-2013 winter, the Pacific Ocean contained a surplus of moisture, yet California’s precipitation levels remained below average. Pedro DiNezio and Yuko Okumura in “Early Years of California’s Drought” reported, “The below-average precipitation is connected to a large ridge of high pressure looming offshore, blocking moisture-laden storms from traveling through California.” According to Dan Baum in his Scientific American publication “Change of State,” “Such high-pressure jet stream-blocking ridges are common off the coast of California, but usually they dissipate within a few weeks, when storms break them apart.” During the winter, many storms tried to sever the high-pressure ridge, but instead of disappearing like most ridges would, it reassembled and became larger (Baum.) Brian Palmer in “Climate Change vs. The Blob” states that the “…high-pressure system had several effects,” one of which being the rerouting of westward storms which continued California’s deprivation of precipitation. The ridge not only continued California’s dry spell, it also created a new problem positioned just off the western coast of the United