El Nino FINALLY Arrives | NOAA Report: After months of straddling the fence, the atmosphere and ocean over the tropical Pacific have finally leaned far enough toward El Niño that forecasters have declared an El Niño advisory. In this week’s ENSO blog, Emily Becker with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center explains the atmospheric and oceanic conditions that finally—but barely—tipped the scales. This map pair from the blog shows how El Niño has affected U.S. precipitation during the 10 years of the modern instrument record during which El Niño was present […] Weather SnowBrains | March 6, 2015 1 Comment
NOAA Report: “How El Nino Will Impact the USA” By this point, most of you have heard that it looks like El Niño is coming, and maybe you’re wondering why you should care. After all, why should it matter if the tropical Pacific Ocean becomes warmer than average? That’s thousands of miles away from the continental United States. Well, it turns out that El Niño often results in changes in the patterns of precipitation and temperature across many parts of the globe, including North America (Ropelewski and Halpert 1987, Halpert and Ropelewski 1992). Many folks probably remember the heavy rainfall, flooding, and landslides that occurred in California in 1982/83 and again in 1997/98. As the […] Weather SnowBrains | June 23, 2014 2 Comments