(Illustration: NASA satellite image of California’s drought, late January-early February 2014, found here).

Drizzling sprinkles this early Friday on California’s north coast as the season slowly shifts, a little quiet, too, as yesterday afternoon turned exceptionally gorgeous — bright sunshine and a pleasant breeze, which seemed to feel more warm than it really should, or words to that effect.
We’re forecast for rain — except for Sunday — all through the end of next week.

Speaking of rain, the lack thereof, and another new report on the shitty drought in the western US, like here in California — even in a thunderstorm. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s US Seasonal Drought Outlook, released yesterday, does make note of us in their summary, but in a good way: ‘Coastal northern California is expected to experience improvement, most likely in December or January, as this region enters a very wet time of year.’
Not so nice elsewhere.
Via Mother Jones:

Nearly 60 percent of the state is experiencing exceptional drought—the worst category—NOAA reported.
The map above shows that the northern California coast could see some improvement.
But in the Central Valley, a critical source of fruits, nuts, and vegetables for the whole country, conditions won’t be getting better any time soon.
A little rain is expected, NOAA forecaster Mike Halpert said in a statement, but not enough to reverse the trend.
“While we’re predicting at least a 2 in 3 chance that winter precipitation will be near or above normal throughout the state, with such widespread, extreme deficits, recovery will be slow,” he said.
The report adds that El Niño, which tends to brings wet weather for the West Coast, is expected to be weak this winter and thus won’t provide much relief.
California’s winter is also more than 50 percent likely to be warmer than average…
And in case you’re still wondering why you should care about California’s drought, try this: The state is the country’s number-two pumpkin producer.
And with Halloween approaching, pumpkin prices have jumped 15 percent because of the drought. Scary!

Not!
This is scary — California’s current drought is way-ugly like the infamous 1934 drought which tore a new asshole for most of the western US — the Great Depression thingy.
Wait for it — yes, another new study, also released yesterday, this one from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, and seems to portend California’s situation resembles the 1930s dust bowl disaster as a high-pressure ridge over the Pacific Ocean diverts rain-filled storms from the West Coast, same as then. Researchers examined figures drawn from the North American Drought Atlas, an index of drought information off tree-ring studies going back 2,000 years.
Via Scientific American:

A similar, but more persistent, atmospheric pattern was at work off the California coast this past winter, and moved storms north.
Cook and his colleagues found that similar ridges preceded some of the worst west coast dry spells, including the 1976 California drought — a two-year event marked as the most severe in California’s recorded history.
“Whenever you see drought, there is always a ridge. But last year’s ridge was a record,” says Simon Wang, a climate scientist at Utah State University in Logan.
“The question is what’s causing it to amplify?”
Wang and his colleagues have found that the atmospheric ridge in California last winter can be traced to human-made warming of the western Pacific Ocean.

So if this high-pressure shit continues — worse than 1934?
Let it rain…or not.