LA NINA EXPECTED TO BRING DRY WINTER.

Byline: David R. Baker Daily News Staff Writer

Sick of the lingering drizzle and rain? Good, because long-range forecasts show we may be in for a dry fall and winter, courtesy of El Nino's evil twin - La Nina.

After months of debate among meteorologists, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the arrival this fall of La Nina, a global weather phenomenon that usually cuts Los Angeles' winter rainfall.

And officials say they are worried that El Nino's bounty - the lush grasses and brush - could herald an ugly fire season. A dry fall and winter, officials warn, could prolong the current fire season and prime Southern California for truly disastrous blazes in 1999.

``If La Nina brings minimal rainfall, there's going to be minimal moisture in the plants, they're going to dry out faster and it's going to be a tough season,'' said Capt. Paul Quagliata, commander of the Los Angeles Fire Department's brush clearance program.

La Nina will not have any effect on summer weather, but her touch should be felt this winter, as forecasters say it already is forming in the Pacific Ocean.

La Nina is, in a sense, the anti-El Nino. While her better-known brother is fueled by unusually warm water in the eastern equatorial Pacific, La Nina starts with cold water in the same location.

El Nino brings warm winters to the United States, La Nina - cold. And while a strong El Nino can douse Los Angeles with twice its normal rainfall, La Nina usually gives the area dry weather.

Just how dry is hard to predict. The last La Nina, in 1995-96, brought Los Angeles about two-thirds of its normal rainfall, according to meteorologist Gerald Bell, with NOAA's climate prediction center. Points north of Santa Maria received their usual dose of rain, while those closer to Mexico got just a fraction of the norm.

``With extreme (La Ninas) you see drought,'' Bell said. ``But that doesn't mean, in any sense, that we're going to have a drought this time just because we're going to get a La Nina.''

The question is more than academic. Even before La Nina reared her head, officials had reason to fear this year's fire season, which started last week. Although the unusually wet spring kept fire danger at bay longer than usual, the rain drove plants into a frenzy of growth, churning out fuel for future wildfires.

``There's stuff growing where it's never grown before,'' Quagliata said.

The dense, thick brush that fuels the most damaging fires will take months to dry out. But if La Nina shrivels up the plants' water supply next winter, the following summer could potentially bring large and intense blazes.

That pattern has played itself out before, when dry winters have followed rainy ones, said Robert Martines, with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

``It's an old saying that with the wet winters, it's not the next year that's bad, it's the one after that,'' he said.

Although Martines' department has stationed an extra water-tanker plane in Hemet, it has not taken any other unusual El Nino-inspired precautions to prepare for the fire season. Neither have the Los Angeles city or county fire departments. All say it is difficult to plan so early in the season.

``In this business, you rock and roll with the weather's punches,'' Martines said.