For California's butterflies, the 1997-98 El Nino year has been virtually a carbon copy of the 1982-83 one, when some butterfly species died out in small geographic areas but none were eliminated from entire regions, says Arthur Shapiro, a UC Davis professor widely known for his butterfly expertise. Many sites in the state's Central Valley where butterflies overwinter have been flooded, putting the butterflies' emergence several weeks behind schedule. For instance, on one day recently when Shapiro normally would have seen about 100 individual butterflies from 10 different species, he saw only three butterflies, all cabbage-butterfly species. Word is still not in on El Nino's effects on monarch butterflies, which winter in coastal groves and breed inland. In the Central Valley, the milkweed plants that monarchs feed on are late in sprouting. If the 1997-98 winter and spring season concludes like 1982-83 did, the most dramatic deviations from normal will be seen in the high-Sierra butterflies. Very late snow melt will delay their emergence and shorten their breeding season, according to the professor of evolution and ecology. At the highest altitudes, some species may even skip a full year.