While El Niño has not officially started yet, and probably won’t be declared for a few months, the impacts of the expected El Niño are already showing up in predictions for this coming winter. The latest outlooks from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center show that August is likely to be above normal in temperature but there is only a slight lean to wetter than normal conditions along the East Coast. For August through October, above normal temperatures are likely to continue but not much skill is seen in precipitation outlooks (this is pretty typical for the summer here). For November through January, a typical El Niño pattern is shown, with the cooler than normal temperatures expected from an El Niño superimposed on a warming trend, and wetter than normal conditions likely to occur in much of the region. The maps for February through April look very similar to the NDJ maps.
