The warmest October on record?

Could be a wild ride this winter

Evidently, it is, in Bend, Oregon.

We've had few hard freezes this October, little rain and no snow.

The highs have been in the 60s and 70s.

The forecast for the rest of the month shows slightly cooler temps in the mid-50s and some rain, but no snow.

I've only lived here 31 years, but I've never seen Mt. Bachelor so bare, so late in October.

We've already had the warmest June on record here in Bend. It's safe to say that 2015 will go down as the warmest year in the city's history.

Granted, the history only goes back about 110 years and the earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old.

But still, this is amazing for Bend. At our house, we haven't put the flannel sheets on yet and probably won't until mid-November. I haven't even worn flannel shirts that much.

Now, this is nothing compared to the 90-degree temperatures experienced in the L.A. area this month.

Or, the routine 80-degree temps in the Bay Area in October.

If much of Oregon and Washington are experiencing drought, one can imagine what's happening in California.

To the credit of many in the Golden State, they have conserved enough water that we don't hear that much anymore about their dire water situation.

But the situation is still extremely alarming down there.

Californians, and to a lesser extent Oregonians, are expecting the largest El Nino on record to save the day and bring record rainfall to the West Coast. It's already brought Hurricane Patricia to Mexico and ridiculous rains to Texas.

Of course, rain without a deep snowpack won't bring much water relief to the parched Pacific Coast.

Plus, Donald Trump will claim that El Nino is just another illegal alien up to no good.

Trump will fix this problem or hire the best people to keep El Nino from stealing American jobs.

El Nino, though, isn't likely to make that big of a long-lasting difference to Western water woes.

In fact, it may be another example of how climate change is worse than we thought.