S6 E6: Sorting through these warm days and a potential El Niño with meteorologist Brian Bledsoe

0:00We're back for another season of Sorting Pinn, the California Catalan podcast. I'm Katie Roberty and I'm so glad you're here again as we will continue to sort through the hot topics impacting California's ranging families and producers throughout 2026. Tune in every other Monday for brand new episodes and here we go with todays. We'll welcome back to this summer episode of Sorting Pinn, the California Catalan podcast. Oh wait, it's actually on the first day of spring, but it sure doesn't feel like it with this weather. So today we're fortunate. We're going to talk about one of two things ranchers like to talk about a lot and that's markets and weather, but today it's going to be weather. So we're fortunate to have this very timely guest with us today. He is a meteorologist and climatologist who was a broadcast meteorologist for 28 years. He also owns his own private weather consulting business that helps farmers and ranchers among others. And I know he does many other things.

1:00If you were at our convention in December and Reno or even a previous convention or maybe even some other meeting for agriculture, you'll likely know or remember our guest today and that's Brian blood. So Brian, great to have you back on the podcast. Oh, thanks, Katie. It's always a pleasure to talk with you guys. Yeah. Thanks so much for being here. How have you been since we last heard from you at our convention in early December? Uh, busy. You know, January, really January through March is very busy for me. I've got a lot of, you know, speaking gigs and whatnot traveling across the Western high plains and different parts of the country. So that's usually, you know, I'm going to, you know, you guys know that as meeting season. So there's a lot of things that are going on, but I'm finally starting to settle down. I'm out here at the ranch today. I'm going to take in some of the exceptional warmth that we're experiencing here in Eastern Colorado and just kind of kick back for a day or two. It's definitely good. We can do that. And the first quarter of the year is almost up. Definitely gone fast. Like you said, with meetings and just getting going into the new year, that always goes fast. But we're happy to have you here today. So let's just get right into it.

2:01I first want to talk about how winter overall was before we look ahead. So right at that meeting in December, you got it right. He said it was going to be dry and California has had some good storms. I mean, we got a pretty good storm three weeks ago. We got a couple in December, but it sounds like, um, cattle country pretty much across the West is dry. Is that what you're hearing or what you know of? Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of doom out there right now. So as somebody who, you know, works in the business that I do, I oftentimes find myself as more of a therapist than a meteorologist, you know, talking people off the ledge about various things. Yeah. But California in particular has been interesting because, you know, in December, you know, we were looking at a lot of things and kind of talked about, hey, the pattern's going to break here for a little bit, but don't expect that pattern, you know, to last through the winter. And if you look at what happened across, really not just California, but a large chunk of the West after you got past the first 10 days of January and then through February,

3:05it was about as dry as it gets. I mean, there were some areas that did not see a drop of moisture during that time. And then fortunately, we kind of saw something break. I mean, that's kind of a, if you look at the water situation in California, you might say, oh, we're doing okay right now. But if you look at the individual statistics about how that water came, it tells a very different story, you know, as far as a very much of a feast and famine type of a winner, you know, for California in particular. But if you go farther east, you know, Utah's in bad shape. The western part of Colorado has been awful, you know, even down across Newham, Northwest New Mexico and parts of Arizona, things have not been good at all. And that's very, very typical of a La Nina episode, like what I talked about in December, that you should see dryness when La Nina is controlling things in the way we were set up across the North Atlantic. So not really much of a surprise, but things are rapidly changing across the Pacific. And I'm hoping that that's going to lead to at least some improvement for some of

4:06us. I think everyone would welcome that. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. I also wanted to mention Nebraska, I mean, unfortunately, we all know they have devastating wildfires right now. Yesterday I read an article in Rutters that said 750,000 acres of grazing land I've been burned in that land for 40,000 cows. So is it dry everywhere in the Midwest, who are there places for these cows to go? I don't necessarily know if there's a lot of places for them to go right yet. I mean, there, you know, a lot of the grass is still dormant in many places. They're still waiting for the green up to take place. So I think the bridge here, and I've talked to a lot of folks and I've even offered, we've got a big surplus of, hey, right here at the ranch in Eastern Colorado, and I've wrenched out said, hey, you know, it's free come get it. You know, if you were, if you were victim of that fire because that's, that's really the bridge is going to get them through this. And fortunately, there's a lot of cheap hay around. Yeah. Fortunately, but unfortunately, exactly. It's working to their advantage in that regard.

5:09So I think, I think that's a good thing for them. If you know anything about that ground up there, it's in the sand hills of New Western Nebraska. And that ground is very resilient, but it's also, if you don't have any vegetation on the top of it, and they call it the sand hills for a reason, it's, it's sandy soil and it blows and it needs some water in order to regenerate. And it will do so. I mean, we've, we see this stuff all the time across, you know, the western high plains. Unfortunately, the setup for this was about as classic of the scenarios you can get because we did very well with moisture last summer and even into the early part of fall. And that helped to grow up a lot of grass and a lot of flashy fuels that have been put out there. So when it dries out and you get a windy day, that stuff will burn for as long as it will burn. You know, in the springtime, you know, we get into the windy season where we see repeated days of not only just, you know, wind gusts of about 30 miles per hour, but we see high wind days where we'll see wind gusts of 60 to 70 miles per hour. And I'll tell you what, you have a wildfire that gets going in the western high plains

6:13with a lot of flash you fuel to burn on a wind gust day of 60 to 70 miles an hour. All you're doing is protecting structures at that point. You're, this thing, you can't control something like that. And it'll outrun you a lot of times. So it was a really perfect scenario to see that type of a fire in western Nebraska, but we also had a fire down across the Oklahoma panhandle that burned up in the Southwest Kansas, you know, back in, back in February. So it's been, you know, we've had some pretty sizable fires already just burning grassland. But like I said, I think the bridge that's going to help a lot of these ranchers through it, at least until the green up until they can develop another plan toward they're going to send their cattle or whatever is, is going to be cheap. Hey, yeah. And the general state of like people like you that just said come get some. Hey, I know in California, we've been really fortunate to have that same situation when we've gone through devastating wildfires, people sitting, hey, people bringing truckloads. So that's obviously one of the reasons we love to ensure it. And but yeah, just thinking about them in Nebraska and appreciate your insights on how

7:14that kind of became the perfect storm. So let's get back to California, obviously I said it's hot here. It's 90 degrees today in Sacramento, which Sacramento gets hot, but not for the first day of spring. So what's kind of up with the weather? Do you think summer's here to stay or could we get some spring rain or some storms still on the way? No, I think we'll see some variability. The one good thing about this ridge of high pressure that's set up across the west is that it's happening during a time of year where we're pushing into spring where we can still see a pretty high degree of variability as far as the weather pattern is concerned. You know, if this were to set up in say may, you know, that might be an entirely different story, but we're not in May, we're in March. And this ridge of high pressure that's dominant right now will be transient. It will weaken. It will move eastward across the country. It's going to take a little bit of time to do that, but I'm already looking ahead into April to where, and especially the first few days of April, where there will be a pattern change that takes place. We'll bring in a storm from the Pacific and hopefully we can bring in a wave train of

8:17those types of storms to help, you know, maybe not have a miracle, you know, April, that would be nice if we could get something like that, obviously, but I'm not even looking for, for a miracle right now, I'm just looking for something that is going to be favorable beyond this change. And I do think we will see some of that take place in April now. That being said, the sea surface temperatures are a lot warmer than average right off the coast of California down the Baja and extending out all the way out toward Hawaii. And when you get those sea surface temperature anomalies that are that warm a lot of times, that ridge can kind of come back and not necessarily in a repeated fashion, but I wouldn't be surprised to see if we see something like that come back a little bit later on. And that is completely different. That area of water that is warmer than average right now is completely independent of the La Nina and El Nino phenomenon that's going on.

9:18So that's one of the focal points right now, what we're looking at and one of the reasons why we are as warm as we are, if that sea surface temperatures are warmer than average right there off the coast, chances are we're going to be in for some warmth this summer. And I know you would mention it's kind of sporadic who's gotten weather, us in the Sierra Nevada's got pretty good storms, like I mentioned a couple weeks ago, but I'm hearing the same thing from our members, like there's some members that have not seen rain. So even though California says it's drought free, I think probably in some parts is very, very dry and getting close back into that drought range. Yeah, it is. And I think that's one of the reasons, you know, if a lot of folks frequent the drought monitor, all right, I mean, I see it all the time or whatever, but you really kind of have to pull back, you know, some of the layers of that onion to find out kind of what goes into it. And I don't think just looking at the drought monitor and taking it at face value necessarily tells the story of how we got there or where we are.

10:20So I think it behooves us to kind of look at, you know, the past 30 days, what's gone on there. And even if I look at a map from say, let's just say January 10th through February 10th, there were many, many areas across the west and California included that as I said, did not see a drop of liquid. And that's during the heart of the wet season. They're in California. So if you front load all that moisture or even just get three weeks of repeated storminess, and you go through a particular part of the wet season and completely strike out, that's not a good thing. And because you want that moisture spread out, you know, over a period of time, not just for for water storage, but also for pastures and whatnot. And if you all that water comes at once, a lot of that water runs off. It doesn't go in and do what it needs to do. And then you piggyback on that with the 30 day period or 40 day period following that that's

11:23completely drier. And then you have something like this with the, you know, the early season heat. The extremes are problem is kind of what I'm getting at. We don't want those extremes. We want something that's a lot more measured and spread out. And I know that that's a big ask. You know what I'm saying? I mean, that's a big ask. I'm very much aware of that. But I don't want someone to just look at that drought monitor across California and say, oh, everything's okay. No, that's not the message here. We need, we need some water. Yeah, absolutely. So we've been in La Nina. I think everyone's big question is, could an El Nino or we're hearing a little bit about maybe a super El Nino beyond the way later down the road in 2026? What do you think? Yeah, I talked a lot about this. If you were at the meeting in December, I talked a lot about how this, you know, 2026 was going to be the transition year from where we moved out of La Nina and moved toward an El Nino. And I still feel very, very confident about that.

12:25The magnitude of this upcoming El Nino by magnitude, I mean, the strength. I think it's still a little bit in question. But there are so many indicators, so many classical indicators in conjunction with computer model information that is fully on board with this upcoming El Nino, being a strong or a super El Nino. And if I look at the changes just simply today that have taken place across the Pacific. And if you look at the sea surface temperature anomalies that are changing across the Pacific out there where they were once cool right along the equator west of South America back in December when this La Nina maxed out. We've done pretty much a full reversal. So the sea surface temperatures have rapidly changed since we've maxed out that La Nina event back in mid to late December. And that cooler than average water has been replaced by a lot warmer than average water right off the west coast of South America. And while there's still a little bit of an artifact of

13:28some cooler water out in the central equatorial Pacific, that's rapidly going to be going by the wayside too. And the reason that is going to happen is for the past couple of years we've done nothing but pool warmer than average water in the west Pacific right around Indonesia off the coast of Australia. And when we see the pressure pattern changes that are taking place across the Pacific a lot of times what that will do is take that warmer than average water and shove it eastward across the Pacific courtesy of some westernly trade winds. Now during La Nina the trade winds along the equator a lot of times are out of the east that helps keep that La Nina going that helps maintain it can sometimes often strengthen it during an El Nino those trade winds completely reverse they blow from west to east and it takes that warmer than average water in the western Pacific and spreads it eastward across the equatorial Pacific. And that basically is what the full on change will inevitably be to an El Nino. So like I said that's just looking at what is

14:32happening right now that's not even taken into account you know all of the computer model forecasts that are fully on board with this transition toward the El Nino. But I will say this I will caution folks I don't want an El Nino or La Nina they lock weather patterns in the particular regimes that become hard to break down. So if you're in one of those you know regimes that's favorable for you you know great but inevitably if it's favorable for you and you're getting moisture you're probably going to end up with too much at some point. And if you're dry well obviously you're going to continue to get drier what I want to see is the Pacific not in either one of those phases but for this particular instance we are going to go into an El Nino and it doesn't benefit everybody equally everywhere. All right a lot of times it can be favorable for California in the southwest but there are certain times when it could it can struggle it just kind of we have to we have to map that out over the next you know few months and kind of see where we're

15:35going to go with that before we can have some real high confidence in it. Sure yeah that makes sense so I do think a lot of people think oh El Nino that's going to be perfect for California so I'm glad you mentioned that but what do we call that in between of La Nina and El Nino just ideal. Well you can call neutral or La Nata. Exactly perfect. So but I think we're so we're the neutral or the La Nata period that we're you know currently kind of in right now is not you know going to stay static I mean it's it's going to be changing rapidly and moving toward and El Nino's we go through spring and now there are different definitions of what how long we have to be in a particular regime before you classify it as as an El Nino a certain period of months where this temperatures are warmer than average out there it's not about necessarily always classifying it as El Nino for those El Nino like impacts to take shape all right because of the change that's taking place from the cooler than average out there to the warmer than average

16:38a lot of times we can see some pretty significant impacts across parts of the country when that transition takes place and one of those areas is the western high plains you know eastern New Mexico west Texas eastern Colorado western Kansas on up in a western Nebraska and that's one of the reasons why you know we can pivot so quickly you know we can go from you know dryness and wind and wildfire and you know a lot warmer than it should be and then once it starts raining it turns and the last time we saw something like this takes place was at least in my part of the world it benefited us that way was in 2023 now out in California obviously the winter of 22 and 23 was epic and and there was so much snow there was so much water and whatnot so you didn't have to want for that necessarily but for other east it was a very different type of winter and spring and it took until late April for things to kick into gear in those western high plains and kind of squash that drought and put away that wildfire so I'm hopeful that that type of transition

17:40which is going to take place in the next couple of months is going to do the same. A lot of our listeners are definitely hopeful as well and are really ruined for you to be correct on that one but also going to watch with anticipation to see what happens with the weather throughout the year so we will hope for somewhere in between La Nina and El Nino but is there anything else that you're watching before we wrap up here that you think ranchers should know about or anything else you want to mention. I think they just need to stay very very current with the forecast there is going to be so much media attention and so many things online or on social media alike that's going to tell you one thing or another about what this El Nino is and what's causing it and what the impact is going to be and in today's world you know it's all about clicks, likes and shares and it's not about the quality of the information so for my customers in particular I always caution them about that you know make sure that you are dialed in with someone who's

18:43not going to lead you down that road as far as weather information is concerned if it is so critical now you know with input costs and the world the way it is and a lot of the uncertainty that you have as much risk as possible mitigated and I understand I'm a very self-aware person about my profession I know it's the future and I know that there's no certainty with that but I'm going to help you manage that risk and and do my best to do so so I want you to be very very cautious going forward make sure you have weather information that you can trust to make those decisions because what we're going to see take place over the next several months in my opinion is going to be something that is that is extreme because we see it all the time El Nino brings extremes some of those are good some of those are not so good and I just want to make sure folks are prepared for it in the egg sector. Yeah that's good advice I mean we talk about that a lot with media and where you get your news there's a million places and you don't know where to get it sometimes

19:44so same for other. That's right and you know we're we live in an amazing age where there's never been more information at our fingertips but at the same time there's never been more disinformation at our fingertips so it's really critical that you know where you're getting that information you trust it and that they actually have your best interest at heart. Absolutely we appreciate that Brian and we appreciate you so if people want to reach out and get more input from you how can they do that? Yeah absolutely you can just simply go to my website it's just brinebloodsoweather.com there are no weather maps on that website it's just a blue bar in the center you can hit that blue bar it puts you in touch with me you know immediately just leave your phone number and your email contact I will get back with you you can also hit me up on Twitter or X it's just at brinebloodso or just search brinebloodsoweather on Facebook and send me a message so there's a lot of different ways you can get in touch with me if you would like because I would like to do good things for you so just just do so if you want to reach out. Thanks brine I'll be sure to put your website in the show notes so if you're listening you can just click the link in the show notes to go directly

20:47to brine's website with the blue bar so I hope that you have a great weekend brine and you get to do all the things you want on the ranch and enjoy the weather. I will do my best and we'll hope for some moisture here as we head into April 2nd. We definitely will thanks brine. Thanks you guys take care. Thanks you too.