However, scientists only started recording El Niño years and their impacts in 1950, and although there have been 28 El Niño events since then (and 25 La Niñas), only three of those winters saw very strong El Niño events like this year: 1982-82, 1997-98, and 2015-2016.
For the three very strong events, it's interesting to note the outlier of 2015-2016. Both 1982-83 and 1997-98, Southern and Central California's coast saw around double the usual rainfall, but even though it was forecast to be wetter than normal in 2015-16, the entirety of their coasts was below average.
This year, we are not seeing the warm blob in the Indian/west Pacific oceans, so all signs are pointing towards a wetter-than-normal winter season. There is warmer-than-normal water in the North Pacific, which could shift the jet stream farther south and bring more storms to Southern California, but it's still highly uncertain.
I have not seen a single forecast that puts any part of central and southern California below average, but as we learned in 2015, El Niño doesn't guarantee anything, and it definitely does not predict where our winter storms and atmospheric rivers will set up. Warmer water evaporates more quickly, which adds more moisture to the air and in turn, should create more intense and heavier rainfall, but exactly where that sets up is still to be determined.
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