El Niño Bringing Huge Rainfall to California

Weather.

We all talk about it. A lot!

My son Jacob drives truck. He's always talking about El Niño. Most of the time I kind of blow it off, but the weather patterns really do form everything based on their path.

Recent snowstorms in Texas and New Mexico? El Niño.  The flooding that's devastated much of the nations midsection?  El Niño again.

Remember when weather experts were saying that it would take years to replenish the Missouri River a few years back. Heavy rains in Montana got things started, the showers moved west and boom. River floods.

• South Dakota Prepares for Missouri River Flooding 2014

Now the weather has been well documented from California that they are bone dry. Crying for a good rain dry!  If you take a look at some of the pictures from Lake Meade from Hoover Dam and it doesn't take long to wonder, how long would it take to replenish some of the dry parts of the United States. Current weather patterns show southern California getting much needed moisture so that won't help Lake Meade for now. About 96 percent of the water in Lake Mead is from melted snow that fell in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming.

If the weather patterns hold, California is about to get wet. Real wet. According to The Washington Post:

The new year is getting off on the right foot in drought-stricken California, where rain is the forecast every day this week. With a train of storms lined up across the Pacific Ocean, there are signs that El Niño is beginning to dominate the West’s weather pattern.

Let's keep an eye on it the next couple days and see how what they get, effects us here in South Dakota. And if you drive truck like Jacob does, how it can determine how long it takes to get you where you're going.