What is El Nino and does it lead to more rainfall for the Central Coast?

During a normal year, we have strong trade winds that blow warm surface water to the western equatorial Pacific which leads to more rising motion and rainfall, with more cold upwelling and drier conditions on the eastern Pacific. During El Nino, those trade winds aren't as strong, so some of that warm surface water rushes back. We then see more rising motion in the eastern Pacific and typically more rainfall.
Right now, we are seeing warm surface water rush back to the eastern equatorial Pacific. But does that mean we're going to have a rainy winter?
Well, if we look at a composite of all the El Ninos put together, you would say that the coast of California does see above average precipitation during El Nino years. But if we break that up by intensity, it tells a much more nuanced story.
If we look at all the weak El Nino events, the Central Coast actually ends up seeing 96% of our average rainfall, which is drier than normal. Then if we look at moderate and strong events, we're slightly above average in terms of rainfall. It's the very strong El Ninos where we are well above average in terms of precipitation.
But even there, there is still a lot of variability from year to year. For example, if you look at the strong El Nino of 1972-73, much of California did see a very wet winter. But then if you look at the strong El Nino of 1987-88, much of California was actually drier than normal.
So what can we say about El Nino? While it's not a guarantee that your winter is going to be rainy, it does seem to tilt the scale. And the stronger the El Nino event is, the more that scale is tilted.
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