Signs Point Toward El Nino Fading By Summer

Schematic showing basic weather influences of 
El Nino, right, which is expected to fade, and La Nina,
left which some forecasters thing will 
take over later this year. 

El Nino, that periodic warming of the eastern Pacific ocean is still in full swing, disrupting weather patterns around the world and boosting global temperatures on top of already intensifying climate change trends.  

Now, there are signs that El Nino might fade.  That kind of thing is inevitable, as El Nino, or its opposite, La Nina seldom last longer than a year or so.

Already, there are signs that El Nino has already passed its peak, though most observers think its effects will last into April at least. 

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center says there's a 79 percent chance that El Nino will fade to neutral conditions by spring.  Those neutral conditions mean the eastern Pacific is neither particularly hot nor chilly. Just kinda average.

However, Climate Prediction Center forecasters say they're detecting increasing odds we might see a switch to La Nina by summer.  There have been several El Ninos in the past that have recently switched rapidly to the cooler La Nina. So if that happens, this wouldn't be too odd

If the transition to La Nina happens, the explosive rate of global warming we've seen over the past year might slow toward the end of the year. But 2024 still has a very strong chance of beating last year as the world's hottest year on record. 

A sustained La Nina, which is a cooling of those eastern Pacific waters, could conceivably make 2025 and 2026 slightly less hot than this year or last. But because of climate change, those future years should still be among the hottest on record. And contribute to all those record heat waves, droughts and extreme storms the world has been increasingly experiencing our the past recent years and decades. 

A more immediate potential issue for the United States is hurricanes.  El Nino tends to suppress hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. Even so there were will more tropical storms and hurricanes than normal in the Atlantic last summer and autumn.

If we do see a La Nina by summer, though, it becomes easier for Atlantic hurricanes to form and become super strong.  That's because unlike in an El Nino, a La Nina features lighter upper level winds. Which means tall thunderstorms that are seeds for tropical storms and hurricanes won't get blown apart before they can organize into hurricanes. 

For us in Vermont, El Ninos more often than not give us warm winters. We've certainly had that this year. We generally have colder winters when there's a La Nina in the Green Mountain State, but of course that doesn't alway happen. Just usually. And climate change is more or less taking some of the sting out of New England winters anyway. 

Of course there's no guarantee we'll see that La Nina by this summer and autumn.  A 55 percent chance of one developing is just a little better than flipping a coin. 

Scientists will continue to monitor the data over the coming months, and adjust forecasts accordingly.