Ocean temperatures off California coast shatter records

Surface ocean temperatures along California, including the northern and central coasts, are rising to record-shattering numbers partly due to this winter s extreme El Niño, a climate scientist said in a webinar Thursday. Massive waves and rainy weather was also expected to begin Friday in the Bay Area after a relatively dry November so far. Even though it has not yet rained at all in places like San Francisco, believe me, it will, and it will probably rain quite a bit in the coming days, said Daniel Swain, a scientist in the California Institute for Water Resources within University of California s Agriculture and Natural Resources division. Swain has been monitoring oceanic temperatures ahead of this year s El Niño, a temporary warming of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean that can lead to significant climate events around the world. He publishes graphs and analyzes data to make weather predictions on his blog and YouTube channel Weather West. This week, something