The Carson Range is reflected in the water that closed Mottsville Lane on May 17. A flood watch remains in effect until 8 p.m. May 22.
Photo by Kurt Hildebrand.
With Carson Valley winning precipitation blackjacks twice in six years, Mother Nature is switching dealers from La Niña to El Niño, according to the National Weather Service.
As of Sunday, Weather Service records indicate Minden has received 21.03 inches of precipitation since Oct. 1, and in a weird coincidence, that’s also the total from the record water year of 2016-17.
Those two La Niña years account for the two wettest years in Minden since records started being kept in 1906.
Climatologists acknowledged at a May 9 webinar conducted by the National Integrated Drought Information System that the drought has receded across large swaths of the West.
Though like any weather pattern in Western Nevada, it’ll change.
Climate.gov has issued an El Niño watch indicating that warmer conditions in the eastern Pacific could bring wetter conditions to the Southwestern U.S. and drier conditions to the Northwest.
Climate Prediction Center Director Dr. David DeWitt said that the chances El Niño will arrive in time for Christmas are more than 80 percent.
But what does that mean for Carson Valley?
“Impacts on the West are relatively small, favoring above normal precipitation in the southern tier of the U.S. and below normal precipitation for the norther tier,” DeWitt aid.
The Record-Courier conducted a survey comparing precipitation totals in Minden with reports from the two ends of the El Niño Southern Oscillation taken over the past 70 years.
Carson Valley sits dead center between two regional weather slot machine reels in the northwest and southwest.
While 2017 and 2023 were both La Niña years, the third wettest water year in Carson Valley occurred during the El Niño year of 1968-69, when Minden recorded 17.93 inches of precipitation.
The El Niño that dominated 2014-16 coincided with heavy monsoon moisture from the south that resulted in the flash flooding across eastern Carson Valley. That wasn’t true of the summer 1994 flooding in Johnson Lane.
Some of the wettest and driest years actually seem to occur during the transitions, such as that 1994 flash flooding. The 1997 New Year’s Flood resulted in $55 million in damages in Douglas County, with nearly 10 times that on the Truckee River.
Editor's Note: This story relies on a significant amount of data obtained from www.weather.gov/wrh/climate?wfo=rev
Here's the table comparing Minden precipitation totals with the El Niño Southern Oscillation
EL NIÑO
Year Precipitation
1951-52 13.28+
1952-53 8.31
1953-54 5.32”
1957-58 10.31+
1958-59 6.03
1963-64 5.16”
1965-66 5.52”
1968-69 17.93+ Third wettest compared to calendar year
1969-70 8.25
1972-73 8.75”
1976-77 4.98
1977-78 10.61+
1979-80 10.6+
1982-83 17.06+
1986-87 2.41 missing March, August and September
1987-88 4.25” Third driest compared to calendar year
1991-92 5.76”
1994-95 12.68+
1997-98 13.28+
2002-03 14.92+
2006-07 4.59”
2009-10 8.57”
2014-15 7.29
2015-16 9.57+
2018-19 11.03+
LA NIÑA
Year Precipitation
1954-55 6.55
1955-56 13.25+
1964-65 9.89+
1970-71 9.92+
1971-72 5.37
1973-74 7.87”
1974-75 10.99+
1975-76 6.1
1983-84 8.25
1984-85 3.83” third driest
1988-89 6.68”
1995-96 12.57+
1998-99 8.36”
1999-00 5.65”
2000-01 5.9”
2005-06 15.17+
2007-08 7.04”
2008-09 5.5”
2010-11 15.84+
2011-12 4.36
2016-17 21.03+
2017-18 9.62+
2020-21 4.79
2021-22 10.46+
2022-23 21.03+
+ indicates precipitation levels above average of 9.34 inches in Minden.
