Later, El Nino Proved Him All Wet

Watching the footage of a TV reporter in a rowboat, I knew what I had to do. She was reporting from a Santa Barbara street corner on a big El Nino dropping and, yes, the storm was heading south toward Orange County. With all the hype this year about whether El Nino was real or not, I figured I might not get a better chance to eyeball this baby myself.

It was early afternoon Friday and yet, without so much as lunch or a proper send-off from my boss, I sprang into action. Grabbing notebook, pen, and my L.A. Times umbrella, I headed to the parking lot for a staff car. Thinking on the run, I had already chosen the Balboa Pier as the spot from which to watch El Nino roll in.

Not knowing how soon it might arrive, time was precious. Unfortunately, we only had one staff car available, and it had a faulty windshield wiper and was deemed unfit for travel. Oh, bitter irony. Having been in many precarious situations before during my career and always coming out on top, I convinced the supervisor to let me take my chances with the car. He relented, and I bolted from the parking lot.

On the way to Balboa, at the corner of 19th Street and Newport Boulevard in Costa Mesa, a coffeehouse sign warned, “El Nino Is Coming.”

As if I needed an omen.

I got to the pier area shortly after 1 p.m., having been delayed somewhat by my search for free parking. Skies were overcast, and the wind seemed to be blowing in a northerly direction, making me wonder whether a southbound El Nino could fight its way through. People on the street seemed anxious, uncertain. My imagination? I think not.

Remembering I hadn’t had lunch, my first stop was Alfi’s Cafe, a new place for me. It wasn’t long before I struck up a conversation at the counter with Bill, a local plumber. I asked nonchalantly if he’d been thinking about El Nino, and he said he had.

“I’m from Chicago, and I know what storms are all about,” Bill said. “We don’t get enough of them here, as far as I’m concerned.”

He asked the guy at the end of the counter, “When’s the rain going to start?”

“Any minute,” the man replied.

Wolfing down my burger, I hustled over to the pier. I logged myself in at about 1:30, thinking it was already windier than just 15 minutes earlier. A lone sailboat was on the water, a few hundred feet from shore. Looking at the ocean, I wrote in my notebook that the water looked “choppy.”

With that, I began my watch. I sat at the end of a long bench, until a bunch of birds started hanging around and making me nervous. Apparently too stupid to fear humans, some of them hovered just a few feet away, as if dangled by an invisible puppeteer.

Finally, after a bird on a trash can 20 feet away kept staring at me, I got up and started walking up and down the pier, occasionally casting glances northward up the coast. I jotted down, “shivering slightly.”

About 2:15, a woman named Barbara appeared on the pier with her husband.

“This is the most deserted I’ve seen it in some time,” she said. Middle-aged and a lifelong Californian, she said she still loves coming to the beach to see the high tides and to listen to the waves. I told her I was waiting for El Nino. “I heard it wasn’t supposed to get here until 10 o’clock,” she said. “You may be here quite a while.”

Hmm.

A bit later, four kids were horsing around. I decided to mess with their minds.

“You guys know anything about El Nino,” I asked.

One of them, who later identified himself as Alex from Santa Ynez, said, “It’s a hot-water current that changes the atmospheric pressure, and that blows in different weather patterns with a lower atmospheric pressure which creates high pressure, which then pushes the storms elsewhere and toward the lower pressure areas.”

“Nobody likes a smart-aleck,” I said. “Are you a genius?”

“No,” Alex said. “I just like science.”

His buddy, wearing a Nirvana T-shirt, also knew about El Nino. “It was a 10-point question in my eighth-grade science class,” he said.

“Are you guys waiting for El Nino?” I asked him.

“No,” he said, “we’re just here eating.”

The rest of the afternoon was pretty unproductive. I monitored the skies, charting every discernible shift in cloud conditions and climate and asking myself the same question over and over: How long can it take for a stupid storm to get from Santa Barbara to Orange County?

Apparently more than three hours, because by 4 p.m. I was leaving and there was still no El Nino.

I can’t say my Friday was a waste of time, though. Sitting beside the ocean can soothe the soul, something 72-year-old Walter Powell appreciates. He’s visiting from Stroudsburg, Pa., and had been biking along the coast when he stopped on the pier.

“I could look at the ocean for hours,” he said. “I enjoy watching it.”

Me too.

The only thing better would have been sitting there while a huge cloud with “El Nino” stitched on its side rolled in and dumped buckets of rain on me.

Until I see that with my own eyes, El Nino will remain a myth.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821, by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.