Earth Science Extra Credit Opportunity

Assignment: Read the following article and make a prediction as to how much rain will fall on San Diego this winter and email it to the address in the article.

Remember 2 things! 1.Use the first 3 steps of the scientific method to come up with you hypothesis. 2. Read the whole article.

The first 5 students who bring me their predictions will get a homework pass.

How much rain will Lindbergh Field, San Diego's official weather station, get in 2008-09? Send your guess to rob.krier@uniontrib.com. Or mail your entry to Robert Krier, Precipitation Prediction Contest, The San Diego Union-Tribune, P.O. Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191.

Entries must be received by Sept. 26. As a potential tiebreaker, please also state the calendar day that you think will be the wettest. Last year, we had to resort to the tiebreaker to determine the winner.

The person who comes closest to predicting the actual total will win a rain gauge and fame beyond his/her wildest dreams. Winners of the six previous contests are all listed in “Who's Who in Rainfall Prediction in San Diego County in the 21st Century.”

The next Weather Watch column, on Sept. 18, might help with your estimate. We'll talk with long-range forecasters to see what the climatological tea leaves in the Central Pacific and elsewhere seem to be saying about the coming winter. We'll get their predictions, too, so it might pay to wait before submitting your guess. On the other hand, someone from the public has beaten the experts every year. The pros' guesses may not carry too much weight.

The season runs from July 1 to June 30. So far this season, Lindbergh Field has had no measurable rain. But that's not unusual and doesn't offer any hint of what's to come.

We would seem to be due for a doozy of a winter. The last three years have all been quite dry in San Diego: 5.42 inches in 2005-06; 3.85 in 2006-07; and 7.25 in 2007-08. Normal rain at Lindbergh Field is 10.77 inches.

But just because we're due doesn't mean we will get dumped on. Since record-keeping began in San Diego in 1850, the city has gone four straight years with far less-than-normal rainfall several times. In fact, it happened not long ago: from 1998-99 through 2001-02.