The Price of Being Wrong Has Risen
If Swain is tossing his hat in the ring, so am I: it now appears very likely we'll see a significantly wetter than average 26/27 winter in California. In non-Swain speak: the price of being wrong has risen.
By "being wrong" I mean not preparing, now, for large, destructive storms, to the extent that you can reasonably do so. No, there is still no guarantee that we will see a giant El Nino-fueled winter. Yes, at this point, we can say that if the storms come, they are likely to be extraordinary.
Preparing for storms that don't actually materialize is expensive. It is materially expensive, of course. It is also reputationally expensive (I sometimes joke to my wife that Swain will only tell you it's going to rain after it actually starts raining).
Nevertheless.
We have the information we need. There is a monstrously large pool of warm water to our west in the Pacific. That giant pot of energy will supercharge whatever storms track across California. Now is the time to make your preparations. The price of being wrong has risen.
— October 6, 2026
Andy Lewicky is the author and creator of SierraDescents