u/flyingchucky

I was curious whether all this hubbub about the crazy intense super El Niño would give us a wet, cold winter in Palm Springs this year. I asked AI to describe the history of “super” El Niños on Palm Springs, and it is pretty clear that while we might get some rainy weeks, it’s far from a sure thing that winter will suck. I figured I’d share the prompt and output here for everyone’s benefit.

Original prompt: “Can you tell me about the weather record in Palm Springs in any or all of the 1982-83 winter, the 1997-98 winter, and the 2015-16 winter?”

Model response:

These are especially interesting because 1982–83, 1997–98, and 2015–16 were the three canonical “super El Niño” events, but Palm Springs experienced them very differently.

1982–83
Palm Springs rainfall: 3.84” Dec–Feb; ~5.92” Dec–Mar
What it felt like: Very wet late winter

1997–98
Palm Springs rainfall: ~5.09” Dec–Feb
What it felt like: Extremely rainy February; probably the standout of the three

2015–16
Palm Springs rainfall: ~2.30” Dec–Feb
What it felt like: One big January burst, then almost nothing

For context, Palm Springs’ modern normal annual precipitation is only about 4.7–5.7 inches, depending on station/normal period.

1982–83
This one built slowly and then got very wet. December 1982 produced about 0.73”. January added 0.97”. February brought 2.14”, including 0.83” on February 2 and another 0.39” the next day.

Then March was another ~2.08 inches, with 1.03” on March 2 alone. So December through March delivered roughly 5.9 inches — more than a typical entire year — concentrated in four winter months.

It wasn’t just continuously miserable, though. There were substantial warm dry stretches: Palm Springs hit 89°F on January 17, and much of mid-February was sunny with highs in the upper 70s and 80s.

1997–98
This was the more striking winter in Palm Springs itself.

December produced roughly 0.96”. January brought about 0.78”, mostly from January 9–11.
Then February went nuts by desert standards: about 3.35 inches fell during the month. Rain occurred on Feb. 3–4, 7–9, 14–15, 17, 20, 22 and 24. There were repeated cool days with highs only in the low-to-mid 60s.

So Dec–Feb alone was about 5.1 inches, approximately an entire normal year’s rainfall.
Interestingly, March then essentially shut off—only about 0.10” is recorded.

Also worth noting: the rain season had already gotten an unusual early contribution from Hurricane Nora in September 1997. The Palm Springs station recorded 1.58” on September 25 and 0.15” the next day, with flooding reported in Palm Springs and Indio.

2015–16: the dud
This is the counterexample everyone cites.

December 2015 was basically bone dry: 0.04” for the whole month.

Then January briefly looked like the promised El Niño. Palm Springs got:
Jan 5: 0.97”
Jan 6: 0.92”
Jan 7: 0.23”
Jan 31: 0.14”

That’s 2.26” in January, mostly in one three-day storm.

And then… nothing. February 2016 recorded 0.00”. It was also remarkably warm: 84°F on Feb. 7, 88°F Feb. 9, 91°F Feb. 14, and 90°F on several other days. March was almost equally dry, with just 0.02”.

For the entire July 2015–June 2016 rainfall season, Palm Springs received only 3.19 inches, 56% of normal. California’s geological survey similarly notes that the southern third of California was below normal despite the extremely strong El Niño.

So if the question behind your question is, “What does a monster El Niño historically mean for a winter homeowner in Palm Springs?”: surprisingly little certainty. 1997–98 meant repeated rainy/cool weather; 1982–83 was notably wet, especially Feb–Mar; and 2015–16 gave Palm Springs essentially one serious storm sequence surrounded by an otherwise dry, often very warm winter.