If you were dreaming of a white winter or even a wet one, you're probably out of luck.

Yes, after a summer that seemed to last from May to October, Southern California's winter is going to be a dry one, says the National Weather Service's local office in Oxnard:

NWS meteorologist Eric Boldt laid out the prognosis in a YouTube video (spotted at L.A. Observed).

The key to SoCal's winter weather is equatorial Pacific water temperatures. Warm water means a wet, stormy El Niño winter. Cold means a drier La Niña. But what about in between?

About 55 to 70 percent of the time, such a “neutral” year means drier than normal for precipitation, he says. In other words, little of that precious wet and/or white stuff.

It would be the third dry year in a row for SoCal.

“Over the years like this one, dating back to when we've kept records, we've had more of a tendency to be dry than wet,” NWS weather specialist Stewart Seto told us.

Meteorologists measure water temperature abut 300 meters down at the equator, he said, with 0.5 degrees Celsius indicating an El Niño year and -0.5 or below indicating a La Niña.

So far they're seeing temps right in the center of those two triggers, Seto said.

A normal winter of rainfall for us is about 15 inches, so we can expect less. Likewise, temperatures will be about average or above, Boldt says.

Our key winter months, especially for rain, are January, February and March.

An endless summer? That's not really possible, but we could see yet another one of those winters that makes the rest of the country want to move here.

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