Russ Steele
After writing this post, Ellen reminded me that in 1989 we had a major blizzard in February of that year. In a single storm we had five feet of snow in our drive way, the wind created huge drifts. My daughter and her boyfriend came home from CalPoly Valentine Day weekend. It started to snow on Friday afternoon, and Sunday we spent all day shovel the quarter mile drive way to get them back to school on time. Our power was out for five days. With that reminder, I decided to see if 1989 was a La Nina year. Yep, one of the strongest in the current Pacific Warm Phase.
It appears that we are entering another Pacific Cool phase, it will take a few more years before we can be sure. If so we can expect our local weather to return to more like that Nevada County experienced from 1940 to 1977. Here is a big picture view of what we can expect, we are currently in the warm Atlantic and cold Pacific mode and thus the dryness in the southwest. 
Click for a larger image.
Both graphics came from this paper: La_Nina_and_the_Oceans_Behind_the_Droughts_This_Year.doc
