From one storm to another, it seems as if sunshine is in short supply this year.
"I would say in general there are a lot of misconceptions about El Niño," said meteorologist Dawn Johnson.
Which brings us to our first myth - El Niño is a storm itself. Instead, El Niño is a pattern change or a teleconnection.
"El Niño is referred to warming in the Equatorial Pacific. Typically when that happens we get a strengthening of the subtropical jet," said Johnson.
Myth number two, that all El Niño patterns are the same.
"Kind of think of them like snow flakes. No two snowflakes are the same. No two El Niños are going to be the same," added Johnson.
What's different about this year, is the circulation of the jet stream.
"During a typical El Niño, we'll see more storms moving into southern California and less activity in the Pacific Northwest. This year we've seen only about a week like that. Overall the systems have been more reminiscent of just a typical winter this year," said Johnson.
So not every El Niño is the same.
"As far as ocean temperature differences, they are showing El Niño conditions," added Johnson.
Not every El Niño setup necessarily means flooding. Debunking myth number three. Records actually shows we've had more flooding in Northern Nevada during a La Nina opposed to El Niño. The 1997 flood in Reno occurred well before the El Niño of '97 and '98. So it's been an active year, but can we attribute every storm to El Niño? The answer is no. Debunking myth number four. There are a variety of patterns meteorologists look at. Both at a small and large scale. Which leads us to our final myth. El Niño will get us out of the drought
"We've had four years of drought, we would have to get at least 200% of normal this winter to even reach what normal would be over five years accumulated," said Johnson.
So the answer is no, but look on the bright side, at least we are headed in the right direction.
