Gov. Newsom receives a briefing from Cal OES Director Caroline Thomas Jacobs and state emergency management leaders on California’s Niño preparations in Mather.
CALIFORNIA – Gov. Gavin Newsom Oct. 6 announced California’s adoption of advanced satellite technology to deliver faster disaster intelligence statewide and the reopening of the State Operations Center at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services or Cal OES, strengthening the state’s ability to coordinate resources, support local communities, and protect Californians through increasingly complex disasters.
During the unveiling of the new State Operations Center, the governor received a briefing from state emergency response leaders on the efforts already underway in preparations for the potentially historic El Niño developing in the Pacific.
The State Operations Center is California’s central coordinating hub for public safety. Staffed by Cal OES and partners from across state government, it coordinates California’s strategic response, maintains statewide situational awareness, and helps ensure continuity of government during emergencies.
The modernized State Operations Center gives those preparations a stronger coordinating hub. From Mather, California, state leaders can maintain a common operating picture, coordinate mutual aid, track local needs, and move personnel and equipment where they can do the most good.
Through an agreement with ICEYE, a satellite-imaging company that helps governments assess disaster damage from space, Cal OES is expanding its ability to receive near-real-time information on floods, wildfires, and other disasters, even through clouds, smoke, or darkness.
The technology can help emergency managers identify where flooding is occurring, estimate water depths, and assess potential damage to homes, roads, and critical infrastructure, including during periods of heavy cloud cover or severe weather.
The information will be integrated into California’s statewide emergency operations and shared with state agencies and local emergency managers to help establish a common operating picture during significant storms. These capabilities can help officials more rapidly identify impacted communities, prioritize response resources, and begin assessing damage and recovery needs.
The technology is one component of California’s broader preparations for the upcoming storm season. Ahead of the El Niño season, Cal OES is leading a whole-of-government preparedness effort and working with local emergency managers to assess readiness, identify potential resource needs, and prepare for hazards, including flooding, debris flows, high winds, and coastal impacts.
California is expanding preparedness while President Trump proposes deep cuts that would shift greater costs and responsibilities to states and local governments. Trump’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposes cutting FEMA by $1.3 billion — reducing state and local preparedness grants, and eliminating the Next Generation Warning System Grant Program, which supports emergency alerts and warnings, including in rural communities.
California is expanding local partnerships and investing in the personnel and infrastructure needed to protect communities from increasingly severe disasters. The state has also demonstrated enough capacity to assist others without weakening readiness at home, deploying 3,482 personnel and 271 pieces of equipment since June to support wildfire, flood, and earthquake response across 13 states and two countries.
This fall and winter could be dangerous, and Californians should take forecasted extreme weather seriously. Federal forecasters say El Niño is strengthening, with a greater than 90% chance of a very strong event this fall and winter and a 75% chance it could reach historic strength. In plain terms, the Pacific is unusually warm, and that warmth can shift storm tracks and load the atmosphere with more energy over the months ahead.
For California, that can mean repeated rounds of heavy rain, strong winds, mountain snow, flooding, landslides, debris flows, large waves, and coastal flooding, especially when storms hit during very high tides. For families, that can mean roads closed by flooding or rockslides, power outages, neighborhoods cut off, damage to homes and businesses, and fast-changing conditions that leave little time to react.
That is why Governor Newsom is acting early, and why residents and homeowners should act now too: know their flood risk, clear drains and gutters, sign up for alerts, and make a plan before severe weather arrives.
El Niño refers to the periodic warming of sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Usually, the tropical western Pacific is warmer than the tropical eastern Pacific; in El Niño, however, this pattern reverses, and the eastern Pacific warms significantly. This changes circulation and precipitation patterns around the world. Although specific, localized impacts are unpredictable, El Niño often produces more frequent and intense storms over California. These storms can produce dangerous flooding, landslides, debris flows, erosion, and other dangerous impacts. This year, California has already experienced coastal flooding attributed to El Niño—as “Kelvin waves” raise sea levels and offshore Pacific hurricanes (fueled by warm water in the eastern Pacific) drive strong waves battering the California coast.
How Californians can prepare
El Niño does not guarantee a wet winter or any particular storm, but it heightens the risk of strong storms in California. Californians should prepare now for the possibility of heavy rain, snow, and flooding:
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