From the San Diego Union-Tribune (Robert Krier):
Klaus Wolter, a long-range forecaster who consults with the California Department of Water Resources to help set water-management strategies, said the current La Niña is one of, if not the strongest La Niña on record. The stronger the La Niña, the more likely it will last, he said. “The odds are quite high that we won’t see a short-lived La Niña,” Wolter said in San Diego Wednesday. “The odds are higher than 50-50 (that it will continue). “La Niña is fundamentally different (from El Niños). Events (of this size) have lasted two, even three years.”[…]
Wolter, who spoke at the Westin Hotel in the Gaslamp Quarter during a workshop on the winter outlook sponsored by the DWR, said the rain this weekend and the abnormally wet October in California and the Colorado River Basin, another major source of imported water for the region, will have little bearing on the coming months. “As much as we rejoice with all this moisture, it doesn’t mean much for the rest of the winter,” said Wolter, who works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Western Water Assessment Team and the University of Colorado. “The winter season is really what counts.”