Sorry, everyone. Way back in March we started talking about the likely event of an El Niño winter season as Pacific ocean temperatures were on the rise. At one point, climatologists were saying it could be a bad one — which would have been great for drought-stricken California. Since then those forecasts have been downgraded, and now, as the Chronicle is reporting, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center is saying it will most definitely be a weak El Niño year, much like we've had multiple times over the last decade.

The last severe El Niño year that California saw was the winter of '97/'98, which saw tons of non-stop rain right through April. But this year is not looking to be a replay of that since ocean surface temperatures have not continued to rise in the way climatologists were expecting. After three years of below-average rainfall and this year's extreme drought, a deluge of rain would do us good.

But now the forecast, though still just a forecast, is calling for a two-thirds chance that an El Niño pattern will form by January, and a 50-50 shot that it will form this month or in November.

In the good news column is the fact that warmer coastal waters could mean that offshore storms may "come in a little wetter," according to Mike Anderson of the California Department of Water Resources.

And this doesn't necessarily mean we won't have a wet winter. It just may not be the Biblical-grade rain we need to refill all those reservoirs.

Look back here for our explanation of what a "weak" El Niño year could mean, when we last faced one in 2012. (Spoiler: There wasn't much rain.)