Quick Take
Although the Climate Prediction Center estimates a 57% chance this winter of a La Niña weather pattern, often characterized by drier weather, the Central Coast’s unique location makes it difficult to predict whether Santa Cruz County will see more, less or the same amount of rain as usual. Regardless, local governments that have faced severe storms in recent years have been prepping for winter weather for over a month now.
After a couple of consecutive wet, stormy winters that slammed California’s Central Coast, public works officials and residents of particularly damage-prone areas are hoping for a dry winter season this year. There is a chance their wishes will be granted.
As recently as Nov. 14, the federal Climate Prediction Center was predicting a 57% chance of a La Niña weather pattern forming in the upcoming winter months. La Niña has an opposite effect to its El Niño counterpart, bringing colder surface water temperatures to the West Coast and producing typically drier, warmer conditions in the southern United States and wetter, colder conditions to the north, particularly the Pacific Northwest.
Santa Cruz County is, of course, right in the middle of those regions, which makes predicting the local effect of a La Niña year a toss-up, much like with El Niño, said National Weather Service meteorologist Rick Canepa.
He added that surface sea temperatures in the Pacific Ocean are currently on the cooler side, which often tends to push stormy, wet conditions farther north, as typical La Niña conditions would, but things don’t always play out that way. Canepa recalled the 2015-16 winter season, which had strong El Niño conditions and warm ocean waters, bringing less rain overall to the Central Coast, and then the La Niña season that followed and resulted in massive rainfall across the region.
“With the typical La Niña pattern, we were expecting the jet stream to shift north of California, but that’s not what really panned out that winter,” he said. “It shows you the variability and complexity of weather systems and their interactions with the sea surface temperatures.”
Even now, with conditions still neutral but favoring the typically drier La Niña, Canepa points to the recent atmospheric river that hit the Bay Area, bringing 6 to 10 inches of rain to Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties. Canepa said patterns like that can still form rather quickly in the area, especially given that the Bay Area and Central Coast are situated right on the cusp of where meteorologists can expect drier weather to the south and wetter weather to the north in a La Niña year.
With that uncertainty, Santa Cruz County officials have been prepping for severe winter weather regardless of the predictions. County Community Development and Infrastructure spokesperson Tiffany Martinez said the county begins its annual winter preparations in the early-to-mid fall. The county is currently working to resupply local fire stations with sandbags for flooding prevention, which it does every year.
Martinez said local officials are paying close attention to levee maintenance, especially after the Pajaro River levee failed in 2023. She said that while the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency is in charge of the majority of levee maintenance, the county works on spot repairs as needed.
Whether the county sees a dry or wet winter, officials have been preparing since mid-October.
“The standard work is clearing culverts, especially in places where water pools, and vegetation management around the county,” Martinez said. “So pulling debris from stream beds or removing a fallen tree or its branches in a stream that may cause a flood. We have to keep those channels clear.”
The City of Santa Cruz has done similar work, said city public works associate professional engineer Miguel Lizarraga. In general, crews will make their way around the city, checking on storm drains and making sure they are not blocked. On projects still in progress, like major construction along West Cliff Drive, he said crews will use “any tool we have in our tool belt to prevent further erosion of an open construction site.” That includes draping plastic coverings over work sites before a storm or setting sandbags along the exposed bluffs.
“That way, we can keep construction going, and then when we see a storm coming down the pipeline, we can stop construction and start ‘winterizing’ a bit,” he said.
Lizarraga said the help from the public is vital, given the wide scope of work public works takes on, especially during the winter.
“We don’t have the staff to go to every street in the city and look at everything, so we do rely on the public letting us know about a potential issue, or what they could see as a potential issue,” he said.
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