A Record Strong El Nino Is Underway. What Does That Mean For The Next Year Or So?

This map shows where sea surface temperatures are above or
below normal and by how much. The darker the shading, the
greater the departure from normal. As you can see, El 
Nino has super charged the warmth of the Pacific
ocean off the west coast of South America. 

 The strong El Nino is under way, but the real fun doesn't start until later this autumn or winter. 

 The El Nino is forecast to become the most intense one on record.
 

To set us up, we need to explain El Nino. 

It's a periodic warming of the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. When it happens, it tends to warm the entire planet up. It also causes areas of extra storminess, and other areas of extra dryness around the world.

El Ninos are now happening on top of climate change, so it's a double whammy. Fossil fuel emissions are warming the Earth's atmosphere long term. El Nino is temporarily making it even worse. 

Even more troublesome, since the current El Nino is likely the strongest on record, the extremes will probably get more extreme. .

As ABC News reports, a typical El Nino usually brings warmer than normal temperatures across the northern tier of the United States, but the effect can be less pronounced over the Northeast. 

In the Northeast, there can be an uptick in nor'easters which can interrupt a relative warm winter with harsh winter storms. 

El Nino typically increases the odds of above-average snowfall in the mid-Atlantic and coastal areas of the Northeast as storms often move up the coast. Farther inland, drier-than-average conditions and less snow are more likely.

For Vermont specifically, we have a look back at Vermont El Ninos winters from WCAX-TV meteorologist Gunnar Consol.

The El Nino winter of 1957-58 was cold and snowy in the Green Mountain State, but that was an exception. Most El Ninos give us at least relatively warm winters. 

Very strong El Ninos in 1982-83 and in 1997-98 yielded winters that were slightly warmer than normal with below normal snowfall. However, the 1983 El Nino year gave us a very wet and snowy winter. The 1998 El Nino year brought Vermont's epic historic January ice storm. I'm not saying this El Nino will create another repeat of that ice storm, but it's potential evidence of weird weather here in Vermont. 

Then came a very strong El Nino in 2015-16. Snowfall was well below normal in Vermont that winter. And it was the hottest winter on record. 

Hottest on record, that is, until 2023-24. Another strong El Nino hit, and that became the hottest winter in Vermont, at least as measured in Burlington. 

There's no guarantee we'll have the same result. There could be other factors that give us a cold winter. So we'll just have to wait and see.

ELSEWHERE

The trouble spots during El Ninos are typically in the southern half of the United States. That means southern California in particularly might be in for flooding rains and landslides. Usually the Gulf Coast states endure frequent winter thunderstorms, flooding and tornadoes.  

Globally, since El Nino warms up an already climate-changed hot world, there's a very good chance that 2027 will become Earth's hottest year on record, beating the record set in 2024 during the previous El Nino.

Either drought' or crop-wrecked storms will likely hit some of the most productive food growing parts of the world. Political instability and income inequality are rising, thanks in large part to certain buffoons in the United States government.

The combination of El Nino, climate change food disruptions and political stupidity isn't necessarily the end of the world, despite what you read in some corners of social media. But it could lead to famine in some areas, deadly storms in other spots. People will unfortunately die because of all this. 

There is precedence for this. An El Nino in 1877 was the record holder until this year for the strongest El Nino. Global famines that year from weather disruptions killed 50 million people. 

It looks like the next year or so will not be a pleasant one for humanity. And those problems will in part go on past 2027.  So brace yourself boys and girls, you are in for some unpleasant surprises with the climate, your local weather, your pocketbook and your general sense of ease.  

Big Heat Waves Hitting Large Parts Of World, Are We Next?

When you see a weather pattern like this in the
summer with a big ridge or northward bulge in
the jet stream over the Northeast, expect a heat
wave. This is one forecast for next Tuesday, 
though computer models are varying on the
strength and duration of the hot spell. 

With climate change taking hold more and more, dangerous, record breaking heat waves have been hitting different parts of the world each summer in the past few years.  

It's only June, but the deadly extreme heat fest for 2025 has already started here on Earth.

 What strikes me the most is that there are currently so many record heat waves going on in different parts of the globe simultaneously. 

There's always a heat wave somewhere in the summer, but the fact that places as diverse as Japan, France, and Kuwait are breaking all time record highs for the month of June all at the same time is pretty unsettling.

We in Vermont could get at least a taste of the hot weather next week. And I think all time record heat will hit the Green Mountain State within the next few years.  More on that in a bit. 

WORLDWIDE HEAT

First, we'll look at some of the incredible heat withering different parts of the world. Much of this information comes from Maximiliano Hererra, a climatologist who tracks worldwide heat waves.

Our first visit is to Kuwait, since the strongest heat was there. Kuwait is an extraordinary hot nation anyway, but this is ridiculous. At last report, the following Kuwaiti figures haven't been confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization.

But if these temperatures are real, they're insane. 

If the 130 degree temperature in Kuwait is confirmed, it would tie the reliable record for the world's hottest temperature on record, which was 130 degrees in Furnace Creek, Death Valley, California on July 9, 2021.

The widely reported hottest temperature isn 134 degrees in Death Valley on July 10, 1913, but there are questions about the reliability of that long-ago reading. 

EUROPE HEAT

A heat wave is building in Europe, too, with record high temperatures already reported in France and Germany. A few cities have already set record highs for the entire month of June. One town in France has hit 100 degrees over the pst couple of days. It's been as hot as 96 degrees in Germany.

Nights in parts of western Europe have been sultry, giving no real relief from the heat. Overnight lows in much of Germany over the weekend were in the low 70s. 

Mertola, Portugal on Sunday reached 105 degrees, hottest for so early in the season. Parts of Spain broiled over the weekend in temperatures as high as 107 degrees.

ASIA

At least 23 weather stations in China have broken their all time record high temperatures for the month of June. In Japan, at least a dozen cities have set record highs for the entire month of June, with readings reaching the upper 90s.  Parts of Indonesia, India and Pakistan are also reporting unprecedented June heat. 

UNITED STATES

The eastern United States is being plagued by persistent storminess that has led to some terrible flash flooding in the central Appalachians. Those floods are expected to continue for the next couple of days, but a new element is about to be added.

Forecasts call for a strong, hot ridge of high pressure to develop over the East early next week. At least a some record high temperatures are expected from the Plains to the East Coast. It's possible a few cities could see their all-time record for the month of June threatened. 

Some computer models depict insanely hot weather in the Northeast early next, though I think a few of these are overdone.  Some runs of the European model bring New York City to an all time high of 107 degrees. The Euro depicts highs up to 101 degrees in southeast Vermont and 97 degrees as far north as Burlington.

I doubt it will get that hot. I think the European model is exaggerating. But the way things are going around the world, who knows?   

VERMONT FORECAST

A taste of very warm, oppressive weather will arrive tomorrow and Thursday, with high humidity and temperatures well up into the 80s.  This won't be anywhere near any record highs, but it will be our most solid introduction to heat and humidity yet this year.

Showers and thunderstorms both tomorrow and Thursday will help hold temperatures well under 90 degrees, but will help keep the humidity incredibly uncomfortable.

We get a brief break Friday and Saturday with high temperatures both days in the 70s. But then the heat should begin to build back up starting Sunday, when it should get into the 80s with increasing humidity. 

Most forecasts have much of Vermont in the low 90s next Monday and Tuesday. There's a slight chance those outlier models of extreme, record breaking heat early next week are correct, but for now, I'm really doubting that. 

The heat next week should be mercifully brief, as temperatures by midweek should drop some.  But only to levels that are normal, or a little warmer than normal for this time of year. 

The long range weather pattern forecast also suggests that strong heat will spend most of the rest of June and probably beyond lurking not all that far to our south and west.  If the wind swings in the right direction, we have the potential for more big oppressive hot spells through the summer. 

NOAA forecasts for this summer in New England have consistently pointed toward a hotter than normal summer. 

FUTURE HEAT

While June and all-time heat records have been falling worldwide in recent years, the all-time hot records for Vermont remain distinctly old fashioned.

The hottest on record for anywhere in Vermont still stands at the 105 degrees recorded down in Vernon way back on July 4, 1911. The hottest it's ever gotten in Burlington is 101 degrees on August 11, 1944.

Now that climate change is increasingly in our lives, I think it's just a matter of time before those old records are broken. And I suspect it could come within just a matter of a few to several years.

We've had some incredible, record smashing hot spells in Vermont in recent years, but they have tended to not come in the summer.  It's just a roll of the dice when they hit. 

In Burlington, records go back to the 1880s. But the records for hottest temperature on record for the entire months of February, May, September, November and December have all happened since 2002 - so pretty recently in the grand scheme of things. Just last Halloween we shattered the record for hottest for so late in the season - 78 degrees on October 31.

That's why I think we are close to breaking are all-time record highs. An intense mid-summer unprecedented heat wave feels inevitable in this age of climate change. 

World Surprisingly Had Its Hottest January On Record This Year

Red hot world again. January was the warmest on record for
the Earth as a whole, with very few places on the
chilly side and many at record heat. 

Scientists got a surprise from the latest snapshot of global temperatures. It turns out January was unexpectedly the warmest on record for the world as a whole. 

Sure, the continental United States was chilly, as I reported in an earlier post on Monday,  but that was very much the exception

The National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI states: 

"The new January global record is particularly notable for having occurred during a La Nina episode, the cold phase El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Global temperatures tend to be cooler during periods of La Nina in comparison to periods with an El Nino present."

Not this time. 

 The three previous world record warm Januaries all occurred during the opposite El Nino, which tends to boost global temperatures. 

As always the NCEI data was sound, as other scientific organizations agreed with the assessment. The European Copernicus Climate Change Service, and Berkeley Earth both measured the Earth as having its hottest January on record. 

Almost the whole world was warm, with the hottest places relative to average in the Arctic, Alaska, northwestern and northeastern Canada, most of central and eastern Europe, southern South America and western Australia. 

The few cold spots were quite a bit chillier than you'd expect. Those rather small cold places were the as-mentioned central and southeastern United States, a good chunk of Greenland, far eastern Russia and a weird, very small area of southern Africa. 

NCEI still says there's only a 7 percent chance that 2025 will be the hottest year on record. 

The warm trend has been happening for long time, but is now accelerating. If you are under the age of 49, you've never seen a global January that was cooler than the 20th century average. 

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

 It's true that this warm January occurred during an El Nino, but it is a weak one, so it might not be having as much an effect on the world's temperature as a stronger one would. 

But I wonder if that fully explains why January was so warm. Snow cover was well below normal in the northern hemisphere. Snow reflect heat back to space, so if there's less snow, the Earth has an opportunity to warm up a little more than it otherwise would. 

But that still might not explain everything. 

One compelling explanation is clouds. Or more precisely, a lack thereof. 

Cloud cover on Earth was below normal in January, and in fact, clouds have been lacking for the past two years. Those two years have shown an alarming acceleration in the how fast the world is warming up. 

High, thin clouds tend to have an overall warming effect on the world. Low stratus or billowy cumulus clouds tend to cool us off a bit. It's those low clouds that have been lacking, explains the Washington Post. 

From above, these low clouds are shimmering white, which reflects the sun's heat back up into space much like that snow cover does. 

The next question is why there are fewer clouds. WaPo explains:

"Researchers are still unsure exactly what accounts for this decrease. Some believe the it could be due to less air pollution: When particulates are in the air, it can make it easier for water droplets to stick to them and form clouds.

Another possibility (Helge) Goesling said, is a feedback loop from warming temperatures. Clouds require moisture to form and moist stratocumulus clouds sit just underneath a dry layer of air about one mile high. If temperatures warm, hot air from below can disturb that dry layer, mixing with it and making it harder for wet clouds to form."

Goessling is a climate physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and is the author of one of the studies that looked at why the Earth was reflecting less heat back to space.  

Feedback loops are dangerous because they feed off each other.  If the cloud theories are correct, fewer low clouds will accelerate global heating. That accelerating heat destroys even more low clouds, which begets even more heat and so on and so on. 

Despite the temporarily chill we've been feeling here in Vermont this year, the unexpected global heat in January, plus these new studies, suggest we have more record-shattering heat in our not so distant future. 

Not just here in Vermont but throughout the entire world. 

Think it's been hot in recent years? You ain't seen nothin' yet. 

 

63 Global Weather/Climate Disasters In 2023 Cost Billions In Disturbing Upward Trend

The interior of a flood-destroyed liquor store in Johnson,
Vermont on July 12, 2023. This was just one tiny
piece of the 63 weather and climate disasters 
worldwide in 2023 that cost more than $1 
billion in damage. 

 Several days ago, I told you how the United States in 2023 endured 28 weather and climate disasters that cost at least $1 billion each.  

Needless to say, these mega-disasters are increasingly a global phenomenon, and we have more receipts.

Jeff Masters over at Yale Climate Connections has the deets: 

"The planet was besieged by a record 63 billion dollar weather disaster sin 2023, surpassing the previous record of 57 set in 2020, said insurance broker Gallagher Re in its annual report issued January 17.  The total damage wrought by weather disasters in 2023 was $301 billion."

If you want a silver lining of sorts, that $300 billion in damage is a little less than the $360 billion in damage during 2022.

Different organizations have different ways of assessing disasters, so  Gallagher Re's figures no doubt vary somewhat from other sources. 

I was simultaneously surprised/not surprised to learn which disaster was the deadliest.  It turns out it was heat waves in Europe during the summer of 2023. These heat waves killed an estimated 15,400 people.

The surprise I felt by that stat is the fact the big death toll was not really reported in the global media. But the part of me that wasn't surprised is that heat waves are the deadliest kind of weather disaster. Hot weather doesn't get the attention you see with dramatic hurricanes, floods and tornadoes. Let's face it, heat waves are not photogenic. So searing, record hot weather does not grab the attention of the media or the public. 

If you want the worst death toll from a storm, that had to be the immense flash floods that hit Libya back in September. The official death toll from that disaster is over 4,300. But it's probably much higher since some reports tell us more than 8,000 people are still missing. 

Seven nations - Mexico, Libya, Spain, Argentina, New Zealand, Greece and Uruguay - had their most expensive weather disasters on record during 2023,

Severe thunderstorm damage has been increasing at a fast pace of 9.6 percent per year since 2000. Most of that extra damage is because people keep moving into more suburban and formerly rural places. Hail causes the majority of the damage. 

Like tornadoes, damaging hail usually causes its worse misery in long, narrow swaths. This suburban sprawl gives giant hail more targets to hit, so you get a lot of extra damage. 

ROLE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Inflation and development contribute to the rise of more and more billion dollar disasters, said Gallagher Re. Climate change, however, is a big culprit, too.

Says the insurance broker:

"We continue to witness the ongoing influence of climate change on the behavior of individual events and broader weather patterns......The fingerprints are now regularly evident. If we do not meaningfully change the status quo and subsequently reverse the growth of carbon dioxide emissions then we should no longer be surprised at the consequences of more extreme weather/climate events that are influence by warmer ocean waters and a destabilized atmosphere."

Africa has seen a horrible uptick in weather and climate related disasters in recent years.

Nearly a quarter of Africa's 30 deadliest weather/climate disasters have occurred in just the past two years, Masters writes in Yale Climate Connection. 

Masters writes:

"This ominous figure could well be a harbinger of the future, as higher vulnerability, a growing population and more extreme weather events from climate change cause an increase in deadly disasters, even without accounting for the recurring episodes of catastrophic regional drought that can take tens of thousands of African lives in a single year."

All this is even more unfair than you'd think if you consider this: Except for Antarctica, Africa has likely contributed least to the atmosphere's increasing concentration of greenhouse gases that are driving this dangerous climate change.  

February Was Earth's 7th Warmest; Continuing Trend In Supposedly "Cool" Regime

Another "red" world in February, 2022. Red areas
are where it was warmer than the long term average,
blue was cooler. The only big blue area is in the
eastern Pacific, which signifies a La Nina pattern.

 This is going to sound like a lot of posts you've read over the past few years, but you have to mark the occasion. 

The monthly global climate snapshot just came out, this one looking at February, 2022. Turns out it was the world''s 7th warmest February on record, according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. 

That's about where we've been the past several months. Seems each of the past few months have been around the fifth, sixth or seventh warmest on record. 

It's a bit alarming, of course, to have such consistently warm global temperatures. That's especially true during what has been a remarkably persistent La Nina global weather and oceanic pattern

La Nina, all other things being equal, tends to cool the world just a little bit. On one hand, that helps explain why we haven't had any "warmest ever" months lately for the globe as a whole. It's also disconcerting because we shouldn't be having top ten warmest months during a La Nina. 

For the record, this was the 46th consecutive February with temperatures at least marginally above the 20th century average, NCEI notes. That's a pretty long lasting trend, but global warming is persistent and getting worse, it seems.

The warmth in February was especially strong in Europe, with other areas of odd warmth in parts of South America and southern Africa.

The coolest areas, relative to average were interior North America and parts of Asia, but nobody had a record cold February. 

With just two months done for the year, NOAA is already giving 2022 a 99 percent chance of being one of the top 10 warmest years on record for the world. 

For the winter as a whole, the period between December 1 and February 28, the world tied with 2015 as having the fifth warmest winter on record, reports NCEI. Each of the last eight winters are among the top ten warmest on record. Reliable data goes back nearly 150 years.

There was a little more ice in the Arctic than in recent years in February, so I suppose that's good news. Still, it was the 14th lowest ice extent since reliable satellite records began 44 years ago, notes the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Antarctica had its lowest ice extent on record for most of the month.  This is a reversal from a few years ago, as Antarctica had some of the highest ice extents on record. 

The (Easy) Hunt For Hot October

Here's one forecast map that shows a full latitude ridge
extending from the Gulf of Mexico to Greenland mid-month
That would indicate warmer than normal weather over all
of eastern North America. Western North America,
especially U.S., would be on the cool side. 

In the Northern Hemisphere, the heat of summer is generally over by late September and early October as we plunge toward winter.  

In this climate change world, the weather has not gotten the memo.

Late season heat records have been broken in a LOT of places at a remarkably fast clip in late September and early October.  

In just the first two days of October, hottest temperature for the month records have been broken or tied in four nations. These are 114.8 degrees in Iran; 110 degrees in Morocco; 102 degrees in China and 90 degrees in South Korea, according to meteorologist Scott Duncan, in a thorough recent thread on Twitter. 

The Canary Islands also hit an October record at 101 degrees.

While I was visiting the Great Plains about a week ago, in the final days of September, record heat had engulfed that area, and that hot weather extended well into Canada.  Where I was staying in Yankton, South Dakota,  temperatures exceeded 90 degrees three days in a row.

Hazen, North Dakota reached 100 degrees on September 28, which is likely the furthest north on record the temperature has gotten that hot that late in the season. 

More than two dozen heat records were broken in Saskatchewan, Canada in the last week of September, including 92 in Regina. 

While we in Vermont are not experiencing record heat, we're certainly escaping the kind of chill we often see this time of year. Temperatures are expected to stay above normal  all of this week and very likely beyond that, and daytime highs will poke up into the 70s on some days. 

Nights once again have been particularly warm.  It was 58 degrees early this morning in Burlington, a temperature that would not at all be unusual for that time of day in July.

Most places in the Green Mountain State have not yet seen their first autumn frost this year. Most of Vermont  usually sees its first frost of the season right about now.  That's not happening this week. Probably won't happen next week, either. 

We're not yet at the stage at which the first frost would set records for lateness.  Records for latest first frosts are right around Halloween.

The persistent warmth is forecast to continue across the eastern half of North America at least through mid-month.  This will include well above normal temperatures far to the north. 

This is turn, could keep water temperatures above normal in the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the myriad of lakes in Quebec and Ontario.  Chances are these bodies of water will also start to freeze over later than usual, too.  This is especially true if the warm pattern holds into November.

That could mean a very cloudy early winter here in Vermont.  When it's relatively cold, moisture rises from the comparatively warm waters, which make the skies over the Northeast and southeast Canada very cloudy.  The very weak sun of November and December can't do much to disperse those clouds.

The cloudiness, if it happens, would also tend to produce frequent bouts of light snow and flurries here in Vermont during the early winter.  There would also be a greater chance of heavier lake effect snows downwind of the larger lakes, especially in western New York.