El Nino

The sympathy of the nation goes out to millions of Californians made miserable by the fury of nature. El Nino, the warm waters of the Pacific Equator, caused the two weeks of torrent that tore away at the structure of the West Coast.With President Clinton due there today, and Gov. Pete Wilson calling a special session of the California legislature, the disaster that has taken at least 11 lives and done at least $300 million damage does not go unnoticed.Drought has been California's problem in recent years.

If you liked last winter in Central Maryland - pretty cold, but with below-average snow - you may get a chance to live it over again this winter. Forecasters at AccuWeather.com say the country is in for a second La Nina winter in a row, with brutal cold and snow across the northern tier of states. For Central Maryland, the annual pre-season forecast calls for no worse than near- to "slightly below-average" snowfall, but with some risk of a few "significant" snow or ice events.

Forecasts of snow may send people running to supermarkets for bread and toilet paper. But some scientists want their predictions to provoke a different reaction -- spurring health officials to prevent disease outbreaks and save lives. Assaf Anyamba, a research scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center, warned officials in Kenya last fall that weather conditions were ripe for an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever, or RVF, a lethal disease transmitted by mosquitoes.

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.

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.

After a pretty cold December for Baltimore and a very cold start to January, some Marylanders have begun to wonder what's going on with the weather this winter. "Why so cold this year?" asked Juan Damien, a reader of the Sun's WeatherBlog at MarylandWeather.com. "Jet stream? El Nino? Any indication that it will continue? Wasn't planning a break, but with these temps [I] may break up the winter with a trip to the Keys." Meteorologists are blaming the cold spell on shifting patterns of atmospheric pressure to our east, called the North Atlantic Oscillation, which have brought cold and snowy weather from central North America to Northern Europe and northern China.

Joe McHugh was one of several readers who asked: The picture in The Baltimore Sun on Dec. 13 showed a huge 25-point, nontypical buck that was still in velvet. I had never seen a deer still in velvet this late in the season. Is this common? Is there any explanation? (Please don't say global warming and/or El Nino.) More information on this phenomenon would be truly appreciated. Outdoors Girl replies: My mantra is: "Everyone should have a personal biologist." I am lucky to have lots of them.

Joe McHugh was one of several readers who asked: The picture in The Baltimore Sun on Dec. 13 showed a huge 25-point, nontypical buck that was still in velvet. I had never seen a deer still in velvet this late in the season. Is this common? Is there any explanation? (Please don't say global warming and/or El Nino.) More information on this phenomenon would be truly appreciated. Outdoors Girl replies: My mantra is: "Everyone should have a personal biologist." I am lucky to have lots of them.

Marylanders who bought sport-utility vehicles after the snow-choked winter of 1995-1996 may still be waiting for enough snow to engage the four-wheel drive.Meteorologists say they can blame La Nina for the third winter in a row of mild temperatures and trifling snowfall in Central Maryland.Temperatures at Baltimore-Washington International Airport averaged 37.6 degrees last month, almost 3 degrees above normal. December and January exceeded their norms by wider margins."In fact, you would have to go back four winters, to the winter of 1995-96, to find a [winter]

At the tail end of the wettest and snowiest December on record, and topping off one of the city's wettest years, it looks like the area is in for more rain and snow before ringing in the new year. The National Weather Service is forecasting a 60 percent chance for a "wintry mix" of precipitation on New Year's Eve, continuing through the night. The area might see sunshine today, but the bad weather is expected to start as snow after 1 a.m., changing to freezing rain and then rain by Thursday afternoon.