This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.

El Niño Is Coming: Here's What To Expect

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Back in March, when looking for the next great economic scapegoat, we wrote "Goodbye Polar Vortex; Hello Solar Vortex - El Nino Is Coming", because as everyone knows by now, in a centrally-planned world, in which the present always disappoints and the rigged market is driven purely by the overly optimistic future forecasts for five years in a row now (despite the rosy future never, ever materializing in the form of a better than expected present), any deviation from what is "priced to perfection" has to be promptly explained away, usually with such ridiculous gimmicks as the weather, i.e. snow in the winter, hot summers, balmy springs and so on.

Two months later, the Bank of Japan confirmed precisely what we knew would happen when it said it is set to blame El Nino for the upcoming spending collapse (which apparently has nothing to do with the utter failure of Abenomics, or the recession japan Now finds itself in following the sales tax hike earlier this year).

Idiot central-planner and economist "justifications" for always being wrong aside, the reality is that El Nino is on its way even if the slowdown in the economy will be due to every other factor except the weather (start with the Fed) which just so happens is a "recurring" event. So upcoming GDP collapse (that nobody could have foreseen earlier, nobody, certainly not the Fed) notwithstanding, here is what one should really expect as a result of the unique weather formation which whose temperature and precipitation impacts across the United States occur during the cold half of the year, from October through March.

From Climate.gov

United States El Niño Impacts

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 region suffers through a devastating drought, it could be something of a relief if we knew for certain that El Niño would bring similar soaking rains. But those two events were the 2 strongest El Niños in the past 60 years, and we’ve seen many other El Niño years where California didn’t experience those types of devastating impacts. So assuming El Niño develops, what can we expect across the United States and when can we expect it?

By examining seasonal climate conditions in previous El Niño years, scientists have identified a set of typical impacts associated with the phenomenon (Figure 1). “Associated with” doesn’t mean that all of these impacts happen during every El Niño episode. However, they happen more often during El Niño than you’d expect by chance, and many of them have occurred during many El Niño events.

 

Figure 1. Average location of the Pacific and Polar Jet Streams and typical temperature and precipitation impacts during the winter over North America. Map by Fiona Martin for NOAA Climate.gov.

 

In general, El Niño-related temperature and precipitation impacts across the United States occur during the cold half of the year (October through March). The most reliable of these signals (the one that has been observed most frequently) is wetter-than-average conditions along the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida during this 6-month period. This relationship has occurred during more than 80% of the El Niño events in the past 100 years.  

In Southern California and U.S. Southwest, strength matters

Over California and the Southwest, the relationship between El Niño and above-average precipitation is weaker, and it depends significantly on the strength of the El Niño. The stronger the episode (i.e., the larger the sea surface temperature departures across the central equatorial Pacific are), the more reliable the signal in this region has been.

For instance, during the two strongest events in the past 60 years (1982/83 and 1997/98), much-above-median rainfall amounts fell across the entire state of California. Median or above-median precipitation was recorded over the entire state during strong episodes in both 1957/58 and 1972/73 (Figure 2). However, strong events in 1991/92 and 2009/10 only provided small surpluses in the southern part of the state, while precipitation during 1965/66 was generally average to below-average across the state.


Figure 2. Difference from average (1981-2010) winter precipitation (December-February) in each U.S. climate division during strong (dark gray bar), moderate (medium gray), and weak (light gray) El Niño events since 1950. Years are ranked based on the maximum seasonal ONI index value observed. During strong El Niño events, the Gulf Coast and Southeast are consistently wetter than average. Maps by NOAA Climate.gov, based on NCDC climate division data provided by the Physical Sciences Division at NOAA ESRL.

For weak and moderate strength episodes (Figure 2), the relationship is even weaker, with approximately one-third of the events featuring above-average precipitation, one-third near-average precipitation, and one-third below-average precipitation.  

Elsewhere over the United States, El Niño impacts are associated with drier conditions in the Ohio Valley, and there is a less-reliable dry signal in the Pacific Northwest and the northern Rockies. Hawaii also often experiences lower-than-average rainfall totals from the late fall through early spring period.

The climate impacts linked to El Niño help forecasters make skillful seasonal outlooks. While not guaranteed, the changes in temperature and precipitation across the United States are fairly reliable and often provide enough lead time for emergency managers, businesses, government officials, and the public to properly prepare and make smart decisions to save lives and protect livelihoods.

Definitions

Weak El Niño: Episode when the peak Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) is greater than or equal to 0.5°C and less than or equal to 0.9°C.

Moderate El Niño: Episode when the peak Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) is greater than or equal to 1.0°C and less than or equal to 1.4°C.

Strong El Niño: Episode when the peak Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) is greater than or equal to 1.5°C.

References

Halpert, M.S. and C.F. Ropelewski, 1992: Surface Temperature Patterns Associated with the Southern Oscillation, J. Clim., 5, 577-593.

Ropelewski, C.F. and M.S. Halpert, 1987: Global and Regional Scale Precipitation Patterns Associated with the El Nino/Southern Oscillation, Mon. Wea. Rev., 115, 1606-1626

 

- advertisements -

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Sun, 06/15/2014 - 17:18 | 4859257 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Kind of off topic in this thread, luckystars, but I was provoked by your comment to repeat this:

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2014-06-08/nsa-whistleblower-snowden-never-had-access-juiciest-documents

I agreed with that overview:

"Snowden Is a Good Guy ...

But There's a LOT that He Doesn't Know.

Snowden Never Had Access to the JUICIEST Documents"

That was the situation, which I always presumed had to be the case, to explain the apparent Lies By Omission!

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 13:35 | 4858779 Moon Pie
Moon Pie's picture

Amazing what a little technology can do.

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 13:37 | 4858784 novictim
novictim's picture

<-- Man Made Climate change is real and we should cut CO2 production

<-- Man Made Climate change is bullshit.

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 14:17 | 4858864 cbxer55
cbxer55's picture

Bet the red arrows beat the green arrows on this one!  ;-)

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 15:11 | 4858965 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

No shit, a lot of fucktards here are in complete denial...

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 17:10 | 4859233 NidStyles
NidStyles's picture

So if we are in denial, you won't mind showing us your credentials then.  

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 23:46 | 4860167 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

I am still laughing...

Yeah, just as soon as you show me your claimed physics degree...

My fuck. you were so stupid to think you could fool anyone into believing you have a physics degree, weren't you....

My credentials are bloody obvious to anyone here capable of evaluating them...

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 08:35 | 4860764 detached.amusement
detached.amusement's picture

lol....the size of your head is bloody obvious, that's for damn sure

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 10:01 | 4860963 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Doesn't it suck when someone has the ability to bust up an ignorance fueled circle jerk about basic science here?

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 17:26 | 4859278 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Yeah, cber55, that seems to be the overall balance of public opinion in the Zero Hedge commenting community.

In my opinion the situation is way too hyper-complicated to be represented in such an over-simplified opinion poll. (That is not helped by guys like Flak being overly confident about their degree of "scientific facts.")

After spending thousands of hours to figure those issues out, regarding humans blamed for climate change, I felt like a dog twirling around chasing its own tail, through infinite tunnels of deceits, which included lots of false confidence being excessively presumed.

Climate Truth is much more difficult to discern than even something like 9/11 Truth.

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 18:01 | 4859331 smacker
smacker's picture

One important fact that you and many others will have observed is that MSM and the countless "true believers" in climate change are in complete denial about the possibility of there being climate change which is not caused by mankind. To them, if you accept climate change - which is difficult to ignore - then you automatically accept it's mankind's fault.

I have never bought their argument, so they call me a "climate change denier", which I am not.

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 21:09 | 4859771 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Right on, smacker! I think that there are both goofy and evil hidden agendas behind insisting that it is all the fault of human beings.

We are presented with another false fundamental dichotomy: "true believers" in climate change are in complete denial about the possibility of there being climate change which is not caused by mankind ... There appears to be plenty of evidence of even greater climate changes on some of the other planets in the Solar System.

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 08:11 | 4860701 smacker
smacker's picture

Absolutely. And when I remind these people that climate change has been going on for about 4.6 billion years - long before mankind ever appeared on planet Earth and historically it's been massively more violent - they resort to their same old same old line: "you're a climate change denier".

You can't win with them folks...sadly, they have engulfed many governments who see opportunities for more taxes and more social control. Whilst they fly around the world from one meeting to another in taxpayer-funded private planes to discuss the next phase of their CO2 reduction policies.

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 10:10 | 4861061 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Quit with the bullshit sophistry and blatant strawmen...

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 13:37 | 4858787 goldhedge
goldhedge's picture

Thats what you get for porous borders.

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 14:31 | 4858888 I Write Code
I Write Code's picture

So if it's a big El Niño is wearing a hoody I'll cross the street, but if it's a little El Niño and his momma isn't around I'll shake him down for his lunch money.

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 14:38 | 4858898 TrustbutVerify
TrustbutVerify's picture

Run for your lives!

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 17:34 | 4859292 TVP
TVP's picture

All weather is controlled weather.

Governments and their militaries have access to technology 20-30 years ahead of the general population.  The following research paper was written in 1996...do the math.

http://csat.au.af.mil/2025/volume3/vol3ch15.pdf <---"Weather as a Force Multiplier: Controlling the Weather by 2025"

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 10:44 | 4861179 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

By all means do the math....

Start with the energy associated with a modest thunder head and get back to us...

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 17:55 | 4859323 Who was that ma...
Who was that masked man's picture

El Nino is coming.  Here's what to expect from weather forcasters, economists, scientists, politicians, and central bankers all around the world:  Bullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshit

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 10:45 | 4861185 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Did you include yourself in that list? 

You should have...

Tue, 06/17/2014 - 19:21 | 4867213 Who was that ma...
Who was that masked man's picture

No but I included YOU.

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 18:16 | 4859352 kurt
kurt's picture

Conclusion:

 

Government and industry financial data, reports, and indicators can now blame bad numbers on El Nino, at least the ones they don't outright fake.

It's a windfall, just in time! 

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 18:48 | 4859389 Bruce Krasting
Bruce Krasting's picture

The scientific definition of an El Nino event is like an economist's definition of a recession. By the time they say "It's here" is 6 months after the event started. As of last Monday, the weekly measure of ONI hit +.5. This is the level that defines El Nino, but it will take another five months before the average catches up to the +.5 level.

So we are in El Nino conditions today. The question is how big an El Nino is coming. The mega El Nino of 1997 saw the ONI index change from -.5 to +2.3 from January through December. So far in 2014 the index has changed from -.6 to +.5. That is a rate of change that is larger than the 1997 Jan-May biggie. So who knows...

 

The computers look at the data and make projections of what strength the El Nino will reach over the next 9 months. Note that in the most recent guesses from NOAA there are three "models" that suggest a big El Nino is coming. Three weeks ago none of those computers had a 1.5 ONI estimate. Now there are three. So who knows....Maybe the machines are catching on to something.

 

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 20:19 | 4859609 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Why don't you plot the info on the strongest Kelvin wave seen since the monster El Nino of 97/98...

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_ev...

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 19:47 | 4859519 TweedleDeeDooDah
TweedleDeeDooDah's picture

El Nino conditions promote fungus and rot in the blue agave of the Chihuahuan Desert, reducing yield, and increasing the price of tequila.
That's the bummer I'm expecting.

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 06:35 | 4860569 BeansMcGreens
BeansMcGreens's picture

But there is always the fungus psilocybin. Go Native.

Sun, 06/15/2014 - 23:27 | 4860130 Never One Roach
Never One Roach's picture

So-called "Global Warming" works for those who make money from it [like Big Al]. Every scientists knows the earth changes...turns..spins this way and that and is going to chang with time. It's not necessarily due to coal burning or cows farting.

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 00:25 | 4860268 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Anyone who brings Al Gore into an arguement against AGW is a clueless Hedgetard... Sorry son to have to break the news but there is a version of Godwin's Law having to do with Al...

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 00:12 | 4860234 the grateful un...
the grateful unemployed's picture

the pattern this year has been unusual high pressure inland which creates an offshore flow and low low humidity. the california drought was not simply a matter of no rain, it was low humidity and very little fog or marine layer, things are drier than hillary clintons, well never mind. once these patterns get started they tend to stick around for a while, right now the water temps are way ahead of seasonal. at the moment we're in a normal trough, (new normal, which means not scorching hot, but not the seasonal cool and cloudy weather either) which should break soon, we have already hit new highs all winter, and i expect some 110s this summer to ring the alarm bell. we (always) hope that a pattern of extreme heat is short lived, but a week or two of extreme heat would break the regions resources faster than an 8.0 earthquake

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 02:49 | 4860456 Royal Wulff
Royal Wulff's picture

Cold Pacific, CA drought. 30 years of it to look forward to. Excepting the years you will get a mild El Nino, like maybe this year.

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 01:16 | 4860361 xavi1951
xavi1951's picture

So what makes a Particle Physicist a Foul mouthed Climatologist ?  EGO!  Flake Meistro has the biggest ego I have ever witnessed.

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 01:33 | 4860383 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Sorry, calling out the Hedgetards that knowingly delude themselves about Global Warming has nothing to do with ego...

So why don't you STFU before you remove all doubt that you are simply a jester playing for greenies from the other Hedgetards, unless you really feel up to giving us a lesson on climate science. And I seriously doubt you are up to the latter...

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 02:47 | 4860455 Royal Wulff
Royal Wulff's picture

It will be a mild El Nino if it happens at all. Can only help relieve SW drought. Temps will crash after.

Mon, 06/16/2014 - 10:37 | 4861078 deflator
deflator's picture

 The primary argument against the concept of climate change in every climate change thread that I see over and over is global warming is a scam by elites to control everything and take all of our shit.

 

 Doesn't the fiat currency system aready give them control over everything? If the answer is yes then that argument falls on it's face and without it the comments would be greatly fewer.

 

 It doesn't matter to me whether the concept of climate change is real or not, I know there is zero chance that of anyone wanting to do anything about it as it makes more sense that maintaining high levels of energy consumption is more of a source of control than taking it away. Elites are more likely to fear losing control if citizens knew the true long term effects on the environment of burning fossil fuels. The elites physically engage in creating massive devisiveness surrounding the concept of climate change brcause if ordinary citizens knew the truth they would be rioting in the streets.

 

 Talk about conspiracy theories, it is amazing to me that it is always the, "sound money Libertarians" leading the charge against the concept of climate change. We don't have sound money! We have money by decree! Elites can create practically anything by decree! All they have to do is say it and it will be so.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!