TechGist05

El Nino has really started to make its presence felt in California over the past few days, with a series of storms bringing lots of rain to coastal areas - just what you would expect during an El Nino winter.  For Victoria, the conventional wisdom is that we tend to experience winters that are warmer and a bit drier than normal during El Nino years.  This year's El Nino has been touted as the largest one ever recorded, so has our winter weather lived up to the expectation so far?  Not really. First, let's look in a little more detail at how El Nino usually impacts our winters in Victoria.  Over the past 30 winters, there have been 6 moderate or strong El Ninos: 1982-83, 1986-87, 1991-92, 1997-98, 2002-03, and 2009-10. The table below looks at the monthly mean temperature in Victoria for December through March, comparing El Nino winters with the 30-year average.  Each month between December and March has been, on average, warmer during El Nino winters.  The ...

One nice thing about this time of year, not only are the days getting longer but the temperatures are getting warmer.  Statistically, the coldest day of the year in Victoria is December 28, with an average high of 6.5 degrees.  Here we are on January 5, and the average temperature for this date is 7.3 (even though we were below average today).  The gradual warming will continue, with the average high temperature topping 8 degrees by January 26, 9 degrees by February 19, and 10 degrees by March 6. The chart below, which shows the average daily high temperature in Victoria between November and March, illustrates this trend.  You can see that average temperatures fall off quickly in November, then level off during December.  There is a short period in late December when average termperatures reach the lowest level of the year.  There is a relatively sharp increase at the end of December and beginning of January when average temperatures jump from 6.5 to nearly...