Bill Patzert

Independent-minded weatherman:

Over the last two decades, the climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge has emerged as perhaps the leading expert on weather in Southern California. He was one of the scientists ahead of the curve on predicting the effects of a huge El Niño in 1998 and ever since has tilted with the windmills of meteorology convention.

...To some meteorologists, Patzert has become just like one of those TV weathermen — quick with the flashy quote.

But the 65-year-old surfer has also gained a loyal following from those who say his forecasts for Southern California are simply the most accurate. Over the last five years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington predicted three times that increasing sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific — the phenomenon known as El Niño — would result in wetter-than-normal winters in Southern California. Each time Patzert disagreed.

Much to the dismay of federal scientists, he started talking about "fictional El Niños," flaccid "El Wimpos" and disappointing "El No Shows."

In July, NOAA predicted another global El Niño, expected to affect Southern California and the Southern states. The 2006-07 season, it said, would be warm and rainier than average.

Patzert's forecast: Dry. Really dry. And he was willing to stake his reputation on it.

WHY are there such enormous disparities between forecasts?

One reason: When it comes to El Niño, NOAA tends to emphasize data from a network of buoys running across the equatorial Pacific from Asia to the Americas. They make measurements on the upper 500 meters in the ocean, where the major deviations in temperature take place. The weather consequences can be dramatic depending on the size of the temperature increase, the area of ocean involved and the duration of the phenomenon. For NOAA, an increase of about 1 degree Fahrenheit over three months in a defined area of the Pacific meets the threshold for El Niño.

Patzert, on the other hand, is an expert in analyzing satellite data.

The satellites measure the elevation of the sea surface as a result of the expansion of water as temperatures increase in the upper 500 meters. The satellites are not as hyperfocused on El Niño and look beyond to other climate patterns.

One of those patterns is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a slow-moving variation of temperatures between the western and eastern sections of the Pacific. In 1998, the western Pacific was becoming warmer than the eastern Pacific, leading Patzert to conclude that in the long term, an "El Niño-repellent" pattern was forming that would favor drought in Southern California for many years.

...Those who disagree with Patzert sometimes point out that he is not a meteorologist but an oceanographer. But Patzert said that as far as El Niño was concerned, that was no disadvantage.

...In 1998, a "monster El Niño" began to develop in the Pacific, and Patzert emerged as one of the most prominent scientists who explained it.

...One day he drove by a Burger King, so the next time he talked about the coming El Niño, Patzert called it "a real whopper." Then he called it "El Niño Grande," a nod to a Taco Bell item. El Niño became "the real deal" based on a McDonald's marketing campaign at the time.

But as January 1998 came to a close, and Southern California remained dry, some climatologists began to waver on El Niño, thinking it might be a bust.

That put Patzert on the defensive.

In late January, Robert Jones, then a columnist for The Times, visited Patzert at the JPL campus. Patzert stared at the sky and excitedly pointed out tropical clouds.

"He's a desperate man, of course," Jones wrote the next day.

Jones was sure Patzert would have egg on his face over El Niño, so he did not hesitate to accept the scientist's $10 bet.

"Sure enough, it started raining, I think a week later," Jones said recently with a laugh. In that February, more than 13 inches of rain poured down on L.A.

...Some scientists criticized him for talking to the media instead of waiting to publish his findings. They whispered about him become a talking head — someone who liked the sound of his own voice.

But others came to respect the fact that he marched to his own drum — something that was becoming increasingly rare in the button-down, highly politicized world of climate and weather forecasting.

"NOAA sees themselves as the official arbiters, so they're always conservative about what they say," Baker said. "There's a little bit of an art to the whole process. It's an inexact science."

And nowhere is the science more inexact than when it comes to El Niño. In 2002, NOAA announced that El Niño was "baaack!" Patzert shrugged it off, saying it wasn't much of an El Niño. Locally, the result was a kind of a draw. Southern California was wetter-than-average — but only by an inch. Two years later, when NOAA forecast a weak El Niño, L.A. experienced record rainfall, but it was from the Arctic and not related to El Niño. (Patzert had predicted dry conditions.)

For Patzert, El Niño had become a convenient explanation for too many things going on in the world. Patzert wasn't arguing that El Niño would have no effects, just that it was being overhyped.

In December, he projected that if El Niño was going to affect the U.S., it would most likely be in the Gulf Coast and Florida —which, in fact, turned out to have wetter weather than the other Southern states.

He quipped that El Niño was even being blamed for stupid things people did that turned out bad — such as taking a trip down a roaring flood control channel on an inner tube.

"Don't blame El Niño," Patzert said. "That was El Nincompoop."

This season, NOAA was back with an El Niño forecast.

As winter came, the government forecasters were looking like they might finally have it right.

The mild, spring-like temperatures that descended over much of the East Coast in the early winter — giving rise to unseasonal daffodils in places like New York — were attributed by some weather scientists, including some at NOAA, to El Niño, rather than to global warming or other climate patterns. El Niño had struck as predicted in Australia, where drought is the result.

But Patzert shook his head. To him, this was the season of "La Nada." The nothing.

In early January, more than 1,000 weather experts from the U.S. and around the world attended the American Meteorological Society conference in San Antonio.

Scientist after scientist rose to present evidence that El Niño was coming.

Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction in Camp Springs, Md., declared: "I think we're starting to see signs, signatures of El Niño."

But Patzert repeatedly described El Niño as "El No Show," to the clear irritation of Robert Livezey, the head of NOAA's Climate Services Division.

"I don't want to hear anything more about 'No Show' until the end of January or February," Livezey said. "If we don't see the impacts, then OK. Let's make the noise. Let's get the attention." The conference ended with the debate over El Niño unresolved.

Then on Feb. 1, NOAA put out a news release. The agency said it had given up on El Niño having much of any impact in North America. As of today, L.A. has experienced 2.47 inches of rain for the rain year, making it the driest on record so far.