how are you doing between practices? i feel pretty good. surrounding myself with a great team. de'aaron we're going to take a quick look at your knee with ultrasound. everything is looking great. but not just for me. for them. it's great to see you again man. thanks jb. for all that is me, for all that is you, kaiser permanente. building a better bay area movie forward finding solutions. this is abc7 news today on getting answers. >> we take a closer look at san francisco's car. free market street did eliminate vehicles.

also eliminate one of the city's most important corridors. holiday heroes. it's a tradition 29 years strong, bringing cheer to underserved children in the bay area. during the season of giving you can help while having fun. but first, get ready for rain and snow. maybe forecasters are predicting another wet winter in california thanks to a very strong el nino coming our way. you're watching getting answers. thanks for joining us. i'm kristen sze the winter outlook is here and we may see a repeat of the last one. now you remember this when the bay area had record rain and snow to kick off this year, experts at the national oceanic and atmospheric administration say get ready for round two and add some warmer temperatures. joining us live now with more on what we need to know and how to prepare is david dewitt, director of noaa's climate prediction center. thank you so much for joining us. >> my pleasure to. >> all right. so what is your

prediction, ian, for this coming year, this coming winter? yeah >> so for california specifically, we're forecasting a slightly enhanced probability of above normal precipitation, even for the state as a whole. and then a slightly enhanced probability of above normal temperatures for as well. >> i wanted to separate the idea of lots of rain and el nino for a moment. right. because as i understand, they don't necessarily go hand in hand, although that's what comes up in people's minds when they hear el nino. what are you saying about el nino and california this year ? >> yeah, so i think the separation is very good. and so i think a lot of people have in their mind 1997 98 event, which was extremely strong as well as the 1982 83 event. and had a lot of precipitation over california for the practical reality is that the el nino or what we would call teleconnection or in fact over california isn't as strong as, say, it is over

florida and so you can have near normal precipitation during an el nino event over california. and you could even have below normal. now certainly we favor above normal, but this year is interesting, despite the fact that we have strong el nino conditions and important to remember the el nino conditions are the sea surface temperature in a region in the central and eastern equatorial pacific. so the correlation between the strength of the el nino and the impact over california for isn't isn't all that strong. and in fact, if you look at the amount of precipitation variability, winter precipitation variable city for california that's explained by el nino, it's somewhere between 15 and 25. so there are other factors that influence your precipitation over california in the winter, including subseasonal phenomena such as the madden-julian oscillation an and it was a series of very active madden-julian oscillation last year that red led to your record

snowfall. >> so while i don't understand what that oscillation means, and i probably don't have enough time to go into that in detail, i do want to put this in context in terms of the strength of el nino since 1950. and you guys actually gave us a graphic that's very helpful to understand just how strong it is this year and how it compares to what we've seen in the last, you know, 70, 80 years. what are we looking at here? what does this tell us? >> well, so actually, what what this figure shows is exactly the point i was making, which is that for these different el ninos, you actually have varying responses. so, for instance, 2015, 16 an was tied for record strength with 97, 98. again, in terms of that sea surface temperature anomaly. but if you look at 1997, 98 precipitation over california, that is very different than 2015, 2016. right, right. so that's that's the point that you need to emphasize or understand that you know, with respect to the strength of the el nino, it

would certainly tend to favor a stronger response in the tropics. but when you get into the extra tropics where we live, where you are in california, that impact is noguaranteed. >> okay. so and you're right, because like last year was not a strong el nino year, not on that map. and yet we had record rain. so what will actually be a better predictor of whether will end up with lots and lots of rain, including damaging ones that flood like we had last year? no it's a great question. >> so rather than using a simple index, the el nino, when we talk about that, you're just looking at a simple index, the sea surface temperature index in that region, we use a series of numerical models, many of them what we would call dynamical models, you know, from the world's leading centers, including here in the us and around the globe and our university research community. that factors in all of these things, including the other phenomena like the madden-julian oscillation that i mentioned before. and that's your best estimate of what's going to happen. our forecast at the climate prediction center is

updated on the third thursday of every month, and that will give you an indication of what we think is going to happen over the nee next few seasons. but i would also say again, that predictable 8-80 what's that the next how many weeks? >> what did you say? oh, it goes out to nine seasons, right? >> from from that. but but again, i think you have to remember that predictability varies depending on where you are. and wintertime precipitation, predictability for california is not as high as some other regions. for instance, in florida or for instance, in in locations near the equator. so if i were in california and i were looking to plan for the future, i would look at the week two forecast, the week two forecast. it has a much higher skill level and actually will tell you if we're going to shift from right now, it's very dry in california right. will you shift from that dry pattern into a wet pattern? you're unlikely to pick that up in the seasonal outlook for california, other parts of the country, that wouldn't be the

case. does that make sense? >> wait the week two forecast? >> is that what you said? >> yeah, that's right. so we produce a forecast that's for day 8 to 14. it's updated every day. so for instance, if you went back to last winter and looked, you were dry through a large part of the early part of your water year outlook. october november into december and then all of a sudden the floodgates turned on. right. so what are the factors that could turn the floodgates on in? yeah. so again , it would be more of these sub seasonal phenomena, things like the madden-julian oscillation. what does that mean? can have a big so while you're talking about el nino so el nino is a specific climate phenomenon. the madden-julian oscillation is a is another tropical climate phenomena that that results in very deep thunder storms that that perturb the jet stream. so the el nino perturbs the jet stream on a longer, slower time scale and things like the madden-julian oscillation perturbed on a shorter time

scale. does that make sense? >> okay. yes, i better understand that now. >> so if we cannot tell until, you know, i don't know, 8 to 14 days out about the wet pattern. we do know, though, that el nino is going to bring warmer ocean temperatures right. and warmer temperatures in general, is that right? >> so el nino brings warmer temperatures generally globally. that's true. okay >> so we can expect a warmer winter at least. >> and again, the other thing you have to remember, forecast on the time scale that you're talking about, winter are probabilistic forecasts. right. so it's an enhanced probability. so certainly you have under an el nino, an enhanced probability of having above normal temperatures. but sometimes you'll you'll actually have below normal temperatures and you're not going to get 100. so these are not deterministic what we would call deterministic forecasts. you cannot say that 100. this will happen. does that make sense?

>> yes, it does. but in terms of preparing, looking at the probabilities, what would you suggest for us in california and again, you know, the practical reality is that and you saw last year, which was la nina conditions which tend to favor below normal precipitation, yet you had the record flooding. >> indeed, if i were in california and you're in a place that's prone to flooding, i would make sure your storm drains are cleaned. i would make preparations just like we do here on the east coast for hurricane ian that you might have one that you might have one of these big atmospheric river events. it's better to be prepared than not prepared. and then monitor that week to forecast and see what is happening, how the conditions are evolving. >> all right, david dewitt, director of noaa's climate prediction center, thank you so much for your expertise is. appreciate it. sure. >> my pleasure. >> all right. coming up next, putting a spotlight on car free market street. is a policy enacted four years ago, killing downtown san francisco. our media partner at the san francisco stanrd will he us navigate, navigate coming up

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we're doing that with the help of our media partner, the san francisco standard. in this new article, they're exploring whether the decision to make san francisco's market street car free has done more harm than good. joining us live now is the standard senior reporter, josh cahn, who wrote that article. hey, josh. >> hey, kristen. how are you? good, good. >> i mean, we work in san francisco, so we know. but for those who don't. how important is market street and what has been its role in the city? yeah market street is basically the most important traffic artery of all of san francisco. >> the street's history dates back to 1847, so it's a

legitimately as old as the city itself. and really, when you come to san francisco, you're going to almost always have to navigate market street because it's got the bart lines, it's got bus lanes, it's got muni metro subway underneath bike lanes, pedestrians and until just a few years ago, rs. >> that's right. these are old pictures, of course. and it's kind of the demarcation line between north and south san francisco. right? so that's right. it's in the heart of the city. but four years ago, like you mentioned, t city banned private vehicles from the eastern part of market street to private vehicles. w? what was that rationale? yeah >> so the banning of private vehicles from market street was part of a broader initiative called the better market street plan. and this better market street project was a $600 million capital project. and so the idea was to repave roads, do all sorts of infrastructure upgrades, elevated bike lanes on

the sidewalks. it was essentially a plan to create a 21st century futurist boulevard. but part of that was also taking private vehicles off of the roads so that only taxis and emergency services and busses would be up there. since that's happened, obviously the world is completely changed with the pandemic and the downtown recovery has been very, very slow. in san francisco. and so one question people are now asking is, should we still be banning cars, private vehicles from market street? >> well, let's explore that idea. right before we talk about that, you said, look, you know, a lot has happened. i think we mean the pandemic. right. and of course, a lot of people have vacated whether it's offices or a businesses. westfield mall. so let's talk about that. what would bringing cars back do, at least according to the folks who are talking about this? >> well, the people i spoke with , business owners, architects and some other people who are kind of on the citizen advisory

committees that instructed the project, some of them are saying that we are having a slower recovery because we're not allowing people to get to westfield mall. we're not allowing them to go to the restaurants and be dropped off, go to the theaters. and so what happens is you have this essentially empty boulevard at nighttime and a lot of people aren't even using the bike lanes a lot during the day because, as you mentioned, the office towers in downtown about 44, i think, drop in office attendance compared to pre-pandemic. and so with a massive vacancy rate in commercial towers, all of the efforts that better market street was designed to facilitate, we're not living in that same situation right now right. >> the world has kind of changed. there have been unintended consequences, but has that project the better market street project, at least achieved some of its goals? >> the better market street project is a joke. honestly, it is not lived up to the promises that were made. right now

they're actually talking about completing constructn on phase one of three phases, which would be fm fifth to eighth street on market street. that's three blocks. this was sposeto transform octavia street all the way to the embarcadero. market street is.2 mes long and so we're talking about the eastern span of it that was supposed to be radically changed. and what we've seen is a whole lot of nothing up to this point. so people should be rightly upset that the city and its san francisco municipal transportation agency has not been able to follow through. now, phase one is being handled by the department of public works, but trying to get anyone at the city to take ownership over the lack of progress has been a little bit challenging. >> well, can we go back in time to who were the deciders, like who? what body voted to ban these private vehicles? >> so the sfmta board, the commissioners, they voted to ban vehicles as part of this bigger project. these are not elected

leaders. they are commissioners. and everyone understood at the time that there was going to be a massive funding gap, about 460 of that $600 million. so what happens is these people then approve the project and everyone understood that we were going to need to do a bond measure. well, last summer, the measure a of $400 million bond measure was put to voters and it failed just short of the two thirds threshold for passage. so now there is no money and there doesn't even seem to be a whole lot of political will to come up with a new plan. >> and in the meantime, i'm you're right. most of market street is pretty empty a lot of the times. but has it at least made it safer for pedestrians and cyclists? i mean, i know that is one of the goals right? >> the sfmta provided some statistics that say collisions are down about 40. the reason market street was being improved moved, most people would tell me, is that it was the most dangerous street in the city of all of san francisco. and multiple intersections were very dangerous. now, with collisions being down 40, that's something

noble we can all get behind that. but the problem is there's not really clear data on how many people are using market street by comparison. if you look around, though, it's radically different than it was in 2019. yeah. >> and that could account for some of the numbers, too. okay so if it no longer makes sense to some people, if it's hurting the economic recovery, for it to remain totally closed to private cars, is there some talk or some champion to say, let's either open it back up or at least open it back up to some types of cars? >> you know, i think it's one of those things where in the reporting process, a lot of people weren't really saying, yeah, let's put cars back on market street until i got towards the end of the report. and as i started reaching out to people, they were like, you know, this is really a thing. i don't know if there's anyone actually, you know, advancing this position into some kind of legislation action. but i do know that the story has really sparked a conversation where people are trying to say, let's let's envision something different for market street, because the plans that we passed four years ago are not the plans

that we have. two or should be moving forward with in some respects. >> all right. well, at least there is thinking about it. there's talking about it. so we'll see what happens and i'm sure you'll be reporting on it. josh kane, thank you so much. >> thanks, kristin. >> if you'd like to read josh's story or more of the san francisco standard's other original reporting on their website, go to sf standard.com. coming up, an annual holiday party at the giants ballpark is coming back next week and you're invited to take part in holiday heroes. we have all the details when giants reporter and ambassador amy g joins us

of pro athletes, all taking the park to host an unforgettable night for hundreds of families and underserved kids in the bay area. abc7 is a proud media sponsor of the event and joining us live now to tell us all about holiday heroes and how you can

support the cause is amy g. san francisco giants host, ambassador and holiday heroes mc. hey amy. hey kristin. >> happy holidays. >> you too. i'm excited to talk to you about this. i know you emcee a lot of events, but this one is special to you. and it is to me too. tell me why. yeah i've had the honor and opportunity to emcee this event now 4 or 5 times, and i think it's so special because of where the resources go and being able to help underserved children. >> as you mentioned in the introduction, it's a time of year that nobody should go without, especially children. and as a parent of two now almost grown children in this time of year, the wonder, the excitement, the innocence of all of it is uh- is so important to be able to instill in our children the gift of giving and

what that means and what the spirit means. and it would be great if we could do it all year long. but i'll take december and it's just really an honor to be a part of a night of giving. >> yes. yes. i mean, when people buy their tickets to attend. right. they're part of that money goes to support underserved kids and spawn the sponsor them so they can come to the giants ballpark. and for some of them, their only holiday celebration of the year, the only holiday goodie bag. but we saw some of the video from past year's events. there was just tons of activity. so amy, talk to us about what are your favorite activities, the ones that the kids really love and get into. >> i know. and we have different activities every year, which is really fun to see. what kind of surprise will be there for the children. there's this 100 foot slide. it's going to be so much fun to watch them slide down it and they have a new event this year. the bruce bolt batting glove contest. and so kristen, all the kids that want the little artist in them, they can go into one of the dugouts and design their own batting glove

and then the top three winners, they're going to get those batting gloves given to their entire team that they play on. so there's face painting, there's hot chocolate, there's cookie decorating. they get to stuff, toy animals, you name it, they've got it and they've got lots of celebrities coming. and we've got our gals are going to be there. gabe kapler slated to be there. it's a it's a true night of wonderment. and all the kids eyes are this big. and i just as a parent, there's nothing better than to see that on their faces. >> yes. gabe kapler, like you said, former giants manager, will come back just for this. so that's special. well, i think ballet legend misty copeland, the first black woman, principal dancer for american ballet theater, will be there as well. who else? because i know every year there are different athletes, different celebs. i remember one year going and my kids were going crazy because there was sergio romo and there was, you know, all your favorites. >> i know. well, so actually,

back to gabe kapler just for a minute, just to mention his travel. he as people are well aware, got hired to be the assistant assistant gm of the miami marlins. and he's flying cross country to come to this event. that's how much it means to him. wow. yes you're correct. misty copeland is going to be receiving the inspiration, an award. her movie flower will be playing on the scoreboard. and during the festivities, before we start honoring some of the guests. and then leslie osborne, who's one of the four founders of bay fc, that's going to start competing next year. ladies i'm so excited about all of this. she'll be there as well. and going around talking to kids, talking to anybody who's there. and i think the most important thing to know is if you can go, this is open to anyone. kristin all families are included. but if you can't go, you can still help. you can actually sponsor a child or a family to be able to go to this event and experience

the winter wonderland of oracle park. you just have to go to holiday heroes .org and you can help in multiple ways and that's one of them. so we hope that people will be able to do that. and we've relied on this community's generosity. for it'll be 30 years next year and they never disappoint. >> it's amazing when the wise foundation does such great work and they support so many of the community foundations of these local sports teams that we love. and yeah, to see all those happy children's faces as they're running the bases there or hitting the same batting cage that the giants players batting. i mean, when else do you get to do that right. >> it's so true. i mean, you really do get to experience a major league baseball field and that just doesn't happen. they open up the entire outfield to all of the families and kids that are going to come. they get to run around, play games, and it's a once in a lifetime experience. but if you're in the bay area, you get to experience

it every year and you should you really should. >> and we saw video of amy windhoek, who started this whole thing just the biggest heart. and she does this every year. i don't even know how. there's also silent auction. i think i'm donating a tour to the station. i'm sure you know, giants are putting up a lot of things. they always do, right? yes >> there's all kinds of auction items, all kinds of experiences. i might bid on that experience and come get a tour with you. you should you should. >> amy, i think it's for eight people and you know, your whole family. >> okay, i'll. >> i'll bring the whole fam, but there's all kinds of just really one of a kind experiences. you just have to go to holiday heroes.org to find out what those are and you can start placing your bids and just, you know, know that your money is going to really one of the greatest causes in the bay area which is otherwise foundation for children. >> absolutely your kids will love it. and you know, the kids who are sponsor who get to go will love it. it's just the best holiday cheer you can have. so, amy, thank you so much. great talking with you. catching up.

>> happy holidays. >> happy holidays is all right, folks. and a reminder, you can get our live newscast, breaking news, weather and more with our streaming tv app. just search abc seven bay area and download it now and also check out holiday heroes .org we'll be righ how are you doing between practices? i feel pretty good. surrounding myself with a great team. de'aaron we're going to take a quick look at your knee with ultrasound. everything is looking great.

but not just for me. for them. it's great to see you again man. thanks jb. for all that is me, for all that is you, kaiser permanente. welcome to the happiest place on earth! where your happy is everywhere! anywhere! he's “pew-pew! pew-pew!” kinda happy. they're even happy-er. and you?! you're the ha-pee-ist of them all! because this place... has all the happy you never knew could exist.

so you're a new kind of happy, every time you visit. welcome to your happiest place on earth! only at the disneyland resort. for a limited time, kids ages 3 through 9 can visit a disneyland resort® theme park for $50 per child with a special 1-day, 1-park ticket. from around the bay area world tonight, breaking news. the chilling video just in. the takedown in the deadly shooting on campus. the suspect, a professor. in new york, the shooting outside a synagogue on this first night of hanukkah. and this powerful cross-country storm right into the east.