Posted by Bret B on March 8, 2015, 5:44 pm
187.148.141.155
(Thanks to Rick and a couple of other people who gave me a heads-up about this news recently.)
The US NOAA Climate Prediction Center has recently raised their El Niņo status from "El Niņo Watch" to "El Niņo Advisory" (El Niņo now in progress.) They say "There is an approximately 50-60% chance that El Niņo conditions will continue through Northern Hemisphere summer 2015. (...) Due to the expected weak strength, widespread or significant global impacts are not anticipated. However, certain impacts often associated with El Niņo may appear in some locations during the Northern Hemisphere spring 2015." http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html
Jeff Masters' blog has a less technical explanation: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2928
I haven't found a good graphic showing the effects that a weak El Niņo would have on Mexico over the next several months. Here's one from Wikipedia:
We might get some more tropical cyclone activity this summer, according to the Wikipedia article: "The tropical Atlantic ocean experiences depressed activity due to increased vertical wind shear across the region during El Niņo years. On the flip side, however, the tropical Pacific Ocean east of the dateline has above-normal activity during El Niņo years due to water temperatures well above average and decreased windshear. Most of the recorded East Pacific category 5 hurricanes occur during El Niņo years in clusters." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o
I can't find any obvious correlation in our 10-years of weather data between the two El Niņos in the last 10 years and La Manzanilla's summertime rainfall. The 2006-2007 El Niņo was "weak"; the 2009-10 El Niņo was "moderate". ( http://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm ) If this one is still kicking by next winter, I'll check the wintertime rainfall correlation then.
Just keep in mind it's a weak one, so we can't blame everything on it!
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