🌊 The Good, Bad, and Ugly of El Niño

🌊 The Good, Bad, and Ugly of El Niño

The El Niño continues to strengthen, and we're now seeing sea-surface temperature anomalies reaching around 3.1°C above normal.

That is an exceptionally strong El Niño.

The expectation right now is that we could peak somewhere around 3.5°C above normal over the next month or month and a half, likely reaching the peak sometime in November before beginning to weaken fairly rapidly as we head into winter.

But El Niño isn't simply good or bad. There are good impacts, bad impacts, and potentially some downright ugly consequences coming from this pattern.

🟢 The Good: A Quiet Atlantic Hurricane Season

Let's start with the good news.

One of the major impacts we've already seen from this El Niño has been across the Atlantic hurricane basin.

So far this year, we haven't seen a hurricane develop in the Atlantic, although we have had several tropical storms. Most of those storms have been relatively weak, although some have still produced significant rainfall.

And there has even been a debate about whether the coastal storm we experienced this weekend should have technically been classified as a tropical storm.

That's a debate that may continue for quite a while.

The important point is that the strong El Niño has clearly been hostile to Atlantic tropical development, and that has been one of the more beneficial aspects of this pattern.

But unfortunately, there is another side to the story.

🔴 The Bad: Flooding Across the Southwest

The bad part of this El Niño has been the persistent heavy rainfall across the Southwest.

New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and parts of Colorado have all experienced significant rainfall and flooding problems.

New Mexico, in particular, has been hit by flooding several times over the past few weeks as tropical moisture has surged northward.

And unfortunately, I don't think this pattern is going away anytime soon.

With Hurricane Polo approaching and additional tropical moisture being pulled northward, we're likely to see more flooding concerns across parts of Arizona and New Mexico.

This is one of the classic ways a strong El Niño can affect the southern tier: it helps energize the subtropical jet and allows large amounts of moisture to be transported northward.

And we're not done yet.

🟠 The Ugly: A Stormy Winter?

Now we get to the part that really has my attention.

As we head toward November and eventually into winter, the atmospheric indices are increasingly pointing toward a much colder and potentially stormier pattern.

The El Niño is strengthening the subtropical jet, and we're seeing an increasingly active pattern across the Pacific.

We've also seen several very powerful hurricanes in the Pacific, with Hawaii experiencing impacts from tropical systems this year.

All of this is consistent with an increasingly energized subtropical jet.

That jet can transport moisture into California and the Southwest, producing more heavy rain and flooding. Eventually, that moisture can spread eastward, contributing to heavy precipitation and severe weather across the South and, when cold air is in place, snow farther north.

And that's where things could get very interesting.

❄️ Could Thanksgiving Be White?

I would not be surprised if by Thanksgiving, some areas are already dealing with snow.

Several of the large-scale indicators we're watching are pointing toward colder weather developing as we move deeper into late fall.

If that cold air combines with the strengthening storm track and southern jet, we could have some significant storms along the Eastern Seaboard.

Those storms could bring heavy rain, strong winds and eventually snow as the thermal pattern becomes colder.

The potential is there for some major coastal storms as we head toward winter.

🌨️ Why This Winter Is Different

There's another major problem when it comes to trying to forecast this winter.

Analog years aren't particularly useful.

Why?

Because we've never seen this exact combination before.

We're dealing with an exceptionally strong El Niño, and at the same time we're dealing with a cold or negative PDO.

That combination makes this setup very unusual.

Normally, forecasters can look back at previous winters with similar ocean temperatures and atmospheric patterns and use those years as analogs.

But what do you compare this to when you've never really seen it before?

That's the challenge.

So instead of relying heavily on analog years, we're going to have to watch what the current pattern and atmospheric indices are actually telling us.

And right now, they're telling us something pretty interesting.

🌎 The Pattern Is Already Changing

We're already seeing pieces of the winter pattern beginning to show themselves.

The coastal storms.

The energized subtropical jet.

The moisture coming northward into the Southwest.

The potential for colder air to begin pushing south.

The developing changes in the atmospheric indices.

Put all of those ingredients together, and you start getting the picture of a winter that could be very active and very stormy.

That doesn't mean every storm is going to be a monster.

But it does mean that when the ingredients come together, we could have some very significant events.

🧂 And Then There's the Salt Problem

And let's not forget about something that becomes a very big issue during winters like this:

Road salt.

Salt is already expensive, and there are still concerns about supplies in some areas.

If we wind up with a winter featuring multiple major snowstorms, municipalities, transportation departments and private contractors could have a very challenging time keeping up with demand.

So if you're responsible for clearing snow this winter, you may want to start thinking ahead.

And for everyone else?

Get a snowblower.

You're probably going to need it.

🎯 The Bottom Line

The good news from this El Niño is that the Atlantic hurricane season has been unusually quiet when it comes to hurricanes.

The bad news is the tremendous amount of rainfall and flooding we've already seen across parts of the Southwest.

And the ugly?

The potential for an increasingly active, stormy and wintry pattern as we head toward late fall and winter.

This is a pattern we've never really experienced before, so we're going to have to watch it evolve in real time.

But based on what we're seeing right now, this winter could be one heck of a ride.

Major cities across the country may want to start preparing now — because if the pattern continues to evolve the way we're expecting, we're going to be talking about some serious snow and some serious storms.

And if you haven't done it already...

Get that snowblower ready!

That's my blog for this Monday.

The Weather Madness continues! ❄️🌨️

— Meteorologist Henry Margusity
Weather Madness — Making Weather Make Sense