The US National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Centre, which has unofficially nicknamed the brewing El Nino “Bruce Lee”, said it was expected to peak in the late fall or early winter. In fact, officials say the numbers from July are the second highest since they started keeping records, back in 1950.
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“We’re well on our way to a strong event and certainly one of the stronger ones”, said Mike Halpert, the center’s deputy director.
The added precipitation will not affect the drought conditions in the long term or do much to relieve drought conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Even though California mudslides caused a lot of damage, the U.S. economy gained by almost $22 billion from the 1997-98 El Nino.
A strong El Nino means more Pacific cyclones are expected.
Remember the heavy rains that wreaked havoc during the 2014 monsoon season?
A U.S. government weather forecaster on Thursday raised the likelihood that El Nino conditions would last into the Northern Hemisphere’s early spring to 85 per cent, boosting the probability that drought-stricken California could see increased rains.
Linked to the El Nino weather phenomenon, this year’s drought has hit subsistence farmers living in Central America’s “dry corridor” that runs through parts of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, hard.
El Nino is a weather event that is trigged by shift in wind directions in the Pacific Ocean along the equator and heating up of water beyond normal levels. “Historical weather data shows us that at best, there’s a 50/50 chance of having a wetter winter, Unfortunately, due to shifting climate patterns, we can not even be that sure”.
“It’s important for farmers here in New Zealand to understand that this is a major El Nino that’s living, right now, currently in existence in the tropical Pacific, just north of New Zealand”, she says. Anderson says it’s too soon to predict a wet winter. The red lines represent an El Nino year, the blue line is La Nina years. The polar jet is our cold air supplier, but El Nino has very little influence on it. It’s a “wild card”…
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The most recent long-term projections, for the months of August, September and October, suggest that temperatures will be above normal and precipitation will be below normal.
