El Nino and La Nina
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AgWeb posted an interesting story this week about the increase in the use of drought-tolerant hybrids of corn in recent years. The first seeds with drought tolerance were made available in 2011 and the percent of corn acreage planted with the new hybrids has grown to over 20% since then. I expect to see this…
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The latest El Niño discussion was released today. Many of us were expecting that the Climate Prediction Center might finally call this an El Niño event and not just a watch, but today’s discussion makes it clear that we are not quite there yet. While the ocean temperatures match what we expect from an El…
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While we are still officially in ENSO neutral conditions, the signs are all there for the declaration of an El Niño within a few weeks. What does that mean for winter weather across the US? In general, when we have an El Niño, the subtropical jet stream, a river of high winds above the surface…
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While an El Niño has not yet been officially declared, the telltale water temperatures and wind patterns that are associated with an El Niño are all in place and I expect an official move from an El Niño Watch to an Advisory in the near future. The forecasts for this winter are less certain than…
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If you follow this blog, you know we’ve been expecting the onset of an El Niño sometime this fall. So far, it hasn’t quite happened. This article from NOAA gives an update on the current status of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and how likely the El Niño is. You can read it at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/november-2018-enso-update-just-little-bit-history-repeating.…
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As you know if you’ve been following this blog, an El Niño appears to be forming in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and is expected to develop over the next couple of months and last through the winter (gory details of the technical discussion can be found at https://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf). A number of forecasters are expecting that unlike…
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While we are still in ENSO-neutral conditions, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is indicating that there is a roughly 70 percent chance of an El Niño occurring by winter. The next update should be out next Thursday. Libbie Johnson of UF/IFAS Extension put together a nice reminder of what impacts farmers in the Southeast, especially northwest…