El Nino Finally Arrives

El Nino climate events are associated with low atmospheric pressure, resulting in cooler, wetter weather in California. Last autumn, with climate scientists predicting an upcoming El Nino event, there was hope that it would coincide with California's winter, which is the rainy season, leading to healthy rainfall and mitigating the 4-year-old drought.

Unfortunately, El Nino never arrived during California's rainy season. It has very recently arrived, as we can verify at NOAA's website here. This El Nino event is still associated with cooler, wetter weather, relative to a typical California spring and summer. However, at this time of year, there aren't many major wet storms in the Northern Pacific to route to California. As such, we'll have a chilly, drizzly spring and summer, but no impact in the way of drought relief.

I lived in San Diego during one of the recent El Nino summers. It never really got warm. It was a chilly, unsatisfying summer. Perhaps this summer's weather will be similar.

The Housing Crunch Continues

In the SF Bay Area, the housing crunch, complete with spikes in rent and home prices, continues. I've maintained the whole time, that the housing prices are not even justified for high-paid tech workers. Most people who work as engineers in this area cannot afford to purchase a house, and even finding reasonable rent is difficult.

The local news featured this article recently. It's anecdotal, but the premise is that even google software engineers have a difficult time finding housing in Mountain View.