A story in Yahoo News this week noted that a group of international scientists have recently announced a new method of predicting the occurrence of an El Niño in 2020, farther out that has ever been predicted before. Their method, using a computer model which looks at changing temperature patterns over the Pacific Ocean, gives an 80 percent chance of the occurrence of El Niño by late in 2020, likely leading to a new temperature record for the globe in 2021 due to the expanse of warm water in the Pacific Ocean associated with the event. I have not looked at the original research yet but has promise to provide information to Southeastern farmers as much as a year in advance, much better than it can be done now. I will try to get more information and let you know what I find. If we do have an El Niño, that would mean the next Atlantic hurricane season would be fairly quiet and that the winter of 2020-21 would likely be cooler and wetter than normal. You can read more here.

Source: AccuWeather