California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Monday to prepare the state ahead of El Niño storm conditions, which are expected to be of historic severity. El Niño will likely bring heavy rain and localized flooding to Stanford’s campus and other parts of the Bay Area this fall.
El Niño is a natural climate cycle in which surface water temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean warm. That process will bring higher-than-usual precipitation to California, causing a more intense winter with the potential for strong storms and coastal flooding.
In recent years, abnormal atmospheric rivers…