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CPC Forecasts Weak El Niño for Northern Hemisphere Winter

October 5, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsThe U.S. national weather forecaster still expects the much-feared El Niño phenomenon, which can wreak havoc on global weather, to remain weak into the Northern Hemisphere winter, even after its development slowed last month.

In its monthly assessment, the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) said on Thursday it is still not clear whether a fully fledged El Niño would emerge, although there is a “possibility” it will strengthen over the next few months.

The report further reduces the risk of a major drought in Asia, which produces some of the world’s major food staples, such as sugar cane and grains. The CPC first raised its El Niño alert four months ago.

A strong El Niño, essentially a warming of waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, can cause widespread drought in Australia, parts of Africa, Southeast Asia and India, but also bring rains to other parts of the globe.

Based on the CPC’s outlook, this year could be on par with previous less-disruptive episodes in 2004-05 and 2006-07 and far off a repeat of 2009 when drought damaged crops across Asia.

“During September, the trend towards El Niño slowed in several key oceanic and atmospheric indicators…. The atmosphere and ocean indicate borderline … neutral/weak El Niño conditions,” it said.

Last month, the CPC forecast the phenomenon would develop weakly in September and persist through February of next year. In Thursday’s update, it did not give an estimate for how long the conditions may last.

Copyright 2012 Reuters. Click for restrictions.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: International NewsTopics: CPC, droughts, El Nino, impact, Northern Hemisphere, rain, weatherHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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Drought Holds Steady in Midwest, Clouding Winter Crop Outlook

October 12, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

The nation’s worst drought in decades showed no signs of improvement last week in parts of the Midwest and Plains where the corn harvest is about two-thirds complete, clouding the prospects for the winter wheat crop, according to a drought report released Oct. 11.

The U.S. Drought Monitor’s weekly update, showing that nearly two-thirds of the lower 48 states remained mired in some form of drought, was released the same day the federal government lowered for the fourth month in a row its projection for the size of this year’s corn crop.

The USDA now estimates that farmers will harvest 10.71 billion bushels of corn, down from last month’s estimate of 10.73 billion bushels. The average yield is about 122 bushels per acre, off from July’s projection of 122.8 bushels.

The dry conditions remained unchanged in Iowa, the nation’s biggest corn producer, with three-fourths of the state still in the extreme or exceptional drought

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U.S. Weather Forecast: Winter to Continue Hot Weather Trend

October 19, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 CommentsAfter a hot spring and a scorching summer, this winter is likely to continue a U.S. warming trend that could make 2012 the hottest year since modern record-keeping began, U.S. weather experts said Thursday.

Drought that ravaged much of the United States this year may spread in the coming months, said Mike Halpert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center.

“The large majority of that drought we expect to persist,” Halpert said. “We even see drought expanding westward … into Montana, Idaho and part of Oregon and Washington.”

Dryer-than-usual winter weather is expected in much of the Pacific Northwest, with higher-than-normal precipitation predicted for the Gulf Coast, according to NOAA forecasts.

For much of the country, a three-month (December-February)winter forecast is hard to pin down. The vast majority of states have what the experts said was an equal chance of below-normal, normal or above-normal precipitation.

The densely populated East Coast, along with the southern tier of states from Texas to Florida and the upper Midwest also have an equal chance of colder, normal or warmer weather this winter, according to the forecasters.

Still, there is enough data to predict a warm winter overall, said Deke Arndt, chief of climate monitoring at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The first nine months of 2012 were the warmest of any year on record in the contiguous United States, and this has been the third-hottest summer since record-keeping began.

“The main issues facing the U.S. going into this (winter) outlook period stem from persistent heat and drought,” Arndt said at a telephone briefing. “It is likely that 2012 will be the warmest of the 118-year record for the contiguous United States.”

An El Nino pattern — a recurring patch of warmer than usual water in the equatorial Pacific that can have a potent effect on U.S. weather — gave hints of developing in September but then subsided, the first time this has happened in approximately 60 years of record keeping on this phenomenon, Halpert said.

“This is one of the most challenging outlooks we’ve produced in recent years because El Nino decided not to show up as expected,” he said. A record-warm winter would be in line NOAA’s latest report on global temperatures, which found September 2012 tied for the hottest September in world records going back to 1880.

However, Arndt said that the signal of human-spurred climate change is less apparent now in some U.S. regions, especially in winter. This is due in part to the changing baseline forecasters use.

U.S. government experts look back 30 years to figure out baseline temperatures for the country. In the past, they used the 30-year period from 1971 through 2000; this year, they used 1981 through 2010. That latest period shows little sign of a warming trend in areas like Florida and other parts of the southeast, Arndt said.

That updated baseline helps to “mask” the signs of climate change on a regional and seasonal basis, Arndt said.

 

 

Copyright 2012 Reuters. Click for restrictions.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: National NewsTopics: Climate Prediction Center, El Nino, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, warming, weather forecastHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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