El Nino and La Nina
-
El Niño has been the dominating atmospheric pattern driving the weather and climate in the Southeast for the past few months. Normally, El Niño brings wetter conditions to the region, with cooler conditions caused by the persistent cloudiness. This year has not been a perfect example, since although some areas of the Southeast saw well-above…
-
The WunderBlog post for 3/25 discusses the likely evolution of the tropical Pacific Ocean from strong El Niño to “whatever comes next”. Both El Niño and La Niña produce strong climate signals in the Southeast, so farmers are starting to watch this transition carefully to see what is likely to happen later this summer and…
-
The State Climate Office of North Carolina just published their winter recap for 2015-2016. Even if you don’t live in NC, the analysis covers most of the Southeast and you may be interested in reading about how El Niño affected our winter conditions. They also rate the accuracy of woolly worm caterpillars, groundhogs, and the…
-
AgWeb had an interesting article this week on predicting corn yields based on past years. One way to do this is to use analog years that are similar to this year and see what happened. In the article, they used 1972-73, 1982-83 and 1997-98. Using the analog method, they showed that in two of the three…
-
The Orlando Sentinel published a sobering article today on the collapse of ecosystems along Florida’s coastline. The story details three separate regions in the state and the crippling impacts caused by chronic pollution, feeble drainage, recent drought and the impacts of El Niño downpours this winter on the health of the estuaries. Impacts also include…
-
Clint Thompson of UGA released a story this week (printed here in Growing Georgia) on the impact of the wet conditions caused by El Niño on corn planting across the region. Rain has been plentiful in parts of Georgia this winter due to frequent storms passing through the area dropping rain and snow. Since Georgia…
-
Even though climatologists know the general patterns for how El Niño affects climate around the world, each event is unique and the observed patterns don’t always match what we expect. The really warm December across the eastern US this year is an example of how different things can be from the “expected” climate. The latest…