El Nino and La Nina
-
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…
-
The latest round of ENSO forecasts now puts the chances of an El Niño occurring this winter at 70%, up from 64% last month. Generally once you get past spring, forecasts become more reliable and trustworthy, although they are certainly not perfect. The El Niño, if it occurs as expected, is likely to bring cooler, cloudier…
-
Today’s ENSO forecast from NOAA shows that we now have a 50% chance of an El Niño by late summer or early fall and a 65% chance of an El Niño next winter, so they have instituted an El Niño Watch. A watch means that while we are still in neutral conditions, the ocean temperatures…
-
According to the latest NOAA ENSO advisory, La Niña is now gone from the eastern Pacific Ocean and we have returned to neutral conditions. While we are technically in neutral conditions, La Niña-like patterns could continue for a few months as the ocean equilibrates. That may mean drier than normal weather in the Southeast for…
-
For those of you who are wondering whether or not our La Niña forecast for this winter has verified, here are the maps showing the temperature and precipitation anomaly patterns from October 1 to the present. Looks like a pretty classic La Niña to me, with warmer and drier conditions showing up across most of…
-
The latest ENSO update from NOAA at Climate.org shows that a blob of warmer than normal temperatures is slowly moving eastward under the surface of the equatorial Pacific Ocean and should displace the cold water that remains from the fading La Niña in the next few months. That has increased the chances of an El…
-
The first of several tropical storm forecasts for the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season was released today by Colorado State University. It shows that they expect a slightly greater than normal number of storms and probability of making landfall in the US based on the weakening La Niña and ocean temperatures that are above normal in…