El Nino

The world is on an El Nino watch, the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center said Thursday. The global climate pattern is well-known for an inundation of snow it can bring the Baltimore area, though its impacts can be varied. There is a 50 percent chance it could arrive for the first time since 2009 by next winter, according to the climate center. Whether an El Nino is declared depends on surface water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator. Warmer-than-normal temperatures bring on El Nino, while cooler-than-normal temperatures lead to La Nina.

It has been a year since the climate pattern known as La Nina ended, the longest period of so-called "neutral" conditions since 2004. And there is no sign of the phenomenon, or its counterpart El Nino, through summer, climate forecasters say. La Nina, known for bringing mild winters to the mid-Atlantic, was last active from August 2011 through April 2012. The phenomenon is marked by warmer-than-average Pacific Ocean surface temperatures around the equator. But since May of last year, those water temperatures have been in "neutral" territory, too cool for a La Nina but not cold enough for El Nino.

Climate forecasters canceled an El Nino watch Thursday, with the climate phenomenon no longer expected to arrive this winter. Recent updates had already indicated El Nino was growing less likely, but the probability it will form has fallen to below 50 percent starting in December. In a monthly outlook published Thursday, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center wrote that while El Nino cannot be ruled out, onset is increasingly unlikely over the next six months. The change in forecast may disappoint snow lovers in Maryland, as El Nino winters are associated with above normal snowfall here.

Depending on how you look at it, snowfall this winter was either a disappointment or an improvement in Baltimore. The seasonal tally of 8 inches through Monday at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport ranks as the 16th least snowy season on record for Baltimore. It was more than four times as much snow as the winter before, but also the second-smallest season snowfall total in more than a decade. After the winter of 2009-2010 -- that of "Snowmageddon", "Snowverkill" or whatever else you want to call it -- everything else pales in comparison.

The world has been on watch since June for an El Nino climate pattern to develop by the fall. While it hasn't yet, it could arrive next month, albeit a weak version of it, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Sea surface temperatures in the Pacific (a signal used to determine the presence of an El Nino or La Nina) rose to El Nino levels in July and August, but signs have not yet appeared in the atmosphere, according to a new El Nino update from the WMO. Forecasters consider it more likely that a weak El Nino will develop than that what are considered "neutral" conditions will continue.

The likelihood of El Nino is increasing, with onset of the climate phenomenon known for snowy winters in these parts expected by fall.  There is "increased confidence" in a weak to moderate El Nino, according to the Climate Prediction Center. Forecasters included the information in an update to the hurricane season outlook issued last week, saying it could impact those storms by late in the season. They expect onset of El Nino by the end of September, though there could be a weeks-long delay in its effects reaching the Atlantic.

The likelihood of El Nino strengthening this fall and winter fell from about 70 percent to 55 percent in a climate forecast released Thursday. While some indicators show the climate phenomenon has been developing in recent months, others favor more neutral conditions, or at least a weaker El Nino than was previously expected.NOAA's Climate Prediction Center  detailed the forecast in a monthly update  that extends an El Nino watch that has...

The El Nino phenomenon has been known for centuries in Peru. Fishermen there noted the arrival of warm Pacific waters, and a season of poor fishing, around Christmas. They named it El Nino - a Spanish reference to the Christ child. This year's event has already caused drought, fires, floods and storms that have killed hundreds of people and caused millions of dollars in damage around the Pacific. But El Nino (pronounced el neen-yo) can also bring benefits, such as a quiet Atlantic hurricane season and tropical game fish in northern waters.

Severe weather has quieted, so there's not much else for meteorologists to chat about but a few guessing games. And AccuWeather severe weather blogger Henry Margusity's hunch is that there is a link between this month's heat waves across the U.S. and the climatic phenomenon known as the North Atlantic Oscillation. The NAO, which measures the atmospheric pressure difference between the typical low pressure system near Iceland and high pressure south of the Azores, hit its lowest point since 1950 in June, an AccuWeather reader pointed out to Margusity.

The Chicago Tribune said in an editorial Saturday:THE astonishing American job machine -- the economic equivalent of the meteorological El Nino -- continues to confound. By all rights, the U.S. economy shouldn't have created more than a quarter of a million jobs in November, any more than we should have experienced record high temperatures in December. But it did.Industrial declineThe Asian financial crisis and its double whammy of cheaper imports and evaporating export markets certainly has taken its toll on the manufacturing sector.

Hot pants, El Nino, Elite Republican Guard and now "fiscal cliff. " When the national news media grabs hold of one of these slogans, they're like a dog with a bone - or your pants leg! They won't let go and will repeat it ad infinitum, as if they know nothing else. Then, it will go away forever. Hot pants came and went in 1971, El Nino did not lead to El Nina, the ERG turned out to be bogus (and ran). Maybe now the fiscal cliff will join the dodo in the dustbin of history. I sure hope so. I'm sick of hearing it already.

Despite recent indications from climate forecasters that El Nino is looking less likely for the winter, AccuWeather is holding firm predictions of above-normal snowfall for the Northeast because of a persistent weather pattern. Severe weather forecaster Henry Margusity points to the repeated blocking patterns that could continue to dominate throught the winter. The patterns involve high pressure settled over the northern Atlantic and often produce storms like the nor'easter that dumped snow on areas recovering from Hurricane Sandy.

Climate forecasters canceled an El Nino watch Thursday, with the climate phenomenon no longer expected to arrive this winter. Recent updates had already indicated El Nino was growing less likely, but the probability it will form has fallen to below 50 percent starting in December. In a monthly outlook published Thursday, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center wrote that while El Nino cannot be ruled out, onset is increasingly unlikely over the next six months. The change in forecast may disappoint snow lovers in Maryland, as El Nino winters are associated with above normal snowfall here.

The likelihood of El Nino strengthening this fall and winter fell from about 70 percent to 55 percent in a climate forecast released Thursday. While some indicators show the climate phenomenon has been developing in recent months, others favor more neutral conditions, or at least a weaker El Nino than was previously expected.NOAA's Climate Prediction Center  detailed the forecast in a monthly update  that extends an El Nino watch that has...

The world has been on watch since June for an El Nino climate pattern to develop by the fall. While it hasn't yet, it could arrive next month, albeit a weak version of it, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Sea surface temperatures in the Pacific (a signal used to determine the presence of an El Nino or La Nina) rose to El Nino levels in July and August, but signs have not yet appeared in the atmosphere, according to a new El Nino update from the WMO. Forecasters consider it more likely that a weak El Nino will develop than that what are considered "neutral" conditions will continue.

As Hurricane Michael and Tropical Storm Leslie churn in the Atlantic with only limited impact on land expected, a new storm system is moving toward North America in the middle of the ocean. The system, about 850 miles west of Africa's Cape Verde Islands, has a 90 percent likelihood of becoming a tropical cyclone in the next 48 hours. That would make it the 14th named storm of the season, to be dubbed Nadine. It's too early to predict where the storm could be headed. It's currently moving west-northwestward at 15 to 20 mph. Leslie and Michael are both headed northward, with Leslie making a brush with eastern Canada on Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES -- As yet another fierce storm walloped Southern California, the National Weather Service's top experts met yesterday in Maryland to discuss whether the abnormal deluge heralds an unusually wet winter for California.Their conclusion: No one knows."We had the best minds in the Weather Service sitting there -- and we couldn't come to a consensus," said Ants Leetmaa, head of a supercomputing project for the Weather Service in Camp Springs, Md."The science is still inexact, and we hope to improve on that.

WHAT IS EL NINO? Will it cause massive climatic changes? Will it ultimately threaten the very survival of humanity? Does it contain fat?These are just some of the alarming questions that are raised by the phenomenon of El Nino, which in recent months has been blamed for virtually everything abnormal that is happening in the world, including the singing group Hanson.To help you understand why you need to become alarmed about El Nino, let's take a moment here to review how the Earth's weather works:Scientists who study weather -- who are called "meteorologists," to distinguish them from scientists who study meteors, who are called "scientists who study meteors" -- tell us that weather is caused by the atmosphere, which is a gaseous mixture containing oxygen, nitrogen, monosodium glutamate and radio waves.

Count one more prognosticator among those calling for a snowy winter in Maryland -- the Farmer's Almanac. The publication's winter outlook calls for cold and moisture across the Northeast and Great Lakes region. That could mean a lot of snow for the northern parts, but some sleet and rain mixed in for the mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley, according to the forecast. The almanac has pegged  February 12 - 15 and March 20 - 23 for "major coastal storms along the Atlantic seaboard" -- as in, potential repeats of Snowmageddon-like storms.

The likelihood of El Nino is increasing, with onset of the climate phenomenon known for snowy winters in these parts expected by fall.  There is "increased confidence" in a weak to moderate El Nino, according to the Climate Prediction Center. Forecasters included the information in an update to the hurricane season outlook issued last week, saying it could impact those storms by late in the season. They expect onset of El Nino by the end of September, though there could be a weeks-long delay in its effects reaching the Atlantic.