A storm plan can begin at ground level: the drain that carries water away, the one that backs up, and the low spot that collects what both miss. On a nursery or greenhouse site, those small differences can decide where water goes when rain arrives.
UC ANR’s guidance for Central Coast nursery and greenhouse growers treats the strong El Niño outlook as a reason to prepare, not a promise that every place will get a wet winter. Its focus is practical: water movement, crop health, infrastructure and storm response. The readiness guidance is relevant to berry operations that also run propagation houses or nursery facilities.
Trace the water before the storm
The first pass is a site walk: note where water enters, where it ponds, and how existing drainage systems carry it away. That map is more useful than a general impression that a property “drains well,” particularly when runoff crosses work areas or reaches structures.
UC ANR’s broader El Niño checklist recommends clearing gutters, drains and culverts and removing dead tree limbs and debris. Those are straightforward jobs, but they compete with harvest, maintenance and crew schedules; a dry spell is easier to use for them than a forecast that has already turned into rain. The checklist lays out those property-preparation steps.
A forecast is not a site plan
Seasonal outlooks can tilt toward wetter conditions without settling what will happen at an individual location. UC Master Gardeners in Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties make the same distinction in their El Niño guidance: even a very strong event does not guarantee a wet winter in any particular place. Their forecast context is a useful check against treating a regional outlook as a local rainfall schedule.
For a facility, uncertainty is a reason to make the plan usable rather than elaborate: assign responsibility for storm response, identify who checks drainage, and decide how crop-health or infrastructure concerns get reported. The Central Coast guidance puts those preparations alongside drainage work, before major rainfall arrives.