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.  

Chile Wildfires Among Most Deadly In Recent Years; Part Of Disturbing Climate Trend

A large neighborhood destroyed by deadly wildfires in
Chile over the past week. 

 The death toll from wildfires in Chile had risen to at least 130 as of Tuesday afternoon as the blazes tore through some densely populated areas in the middle of the South American nation.  

The fires in Chile's Valparaiso region has also left hundreds of people missing and destroyed thousands of homes. 

The fires are likely the deadliest in Chilean history. I'm surprised this calamity hasn't been in the news more than it has. 

Reports BBC:

"President Gabriel Boric said the blaze was 'the worst catastrophe to hit the country since the earthquake of 27 February 2010,'  in which more than 500 people died."

At least 15,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. Whole neighborhoods are gone. The fires spread so fast amid strong winds that many people had no time to flee, which is why there's such a high death toll.

And it is high, by any measure.  

Says Yale Climate Connections: 

"According to statistics from EM-DAT, the international disaster database, this makes the fires the fifth deadliest worldwide since 1900."

There's been a disturbing increase in wildfire deaths in the past decade or so. With this Chilean fire, five of the top ten deadliest wildfires since 1900 have occurred since 2018. Only two of the top 10 deadliest fires hit before 1987. 

You can't help but wonder if climate change is a part of this trend. Of course, more and more people are living in the urban/wildlands interface, where development impinges on sometimes dangerously dry forests. So that's a big part of the issue and the danger. 

Climate change is making some droughts more likely and more intense. This seems to be the case for Chile, with is suffering through what is probably an unprecedented mega-drought. 

According to Yale Climate Connections:

"The fires were stoked by near-record warm temperatures that have affected central Chile in recent weeks, with temperatures up to 42.9 Celsius (109°F). The accompanying lack of rainfall has created extreme drought and very dangerous fire conditions. 

These conditions came on top of the Central Chile megadrought that began in 2010 - the region' longest drought in at least 1,000 years. The drought has brought precipitation 25-45 percent below average, lowering reservoirs and causing tensions and social unrest over water availability."

The tensions and social unrest that the climate crisis encourages is especially disturbing to me, as you might have gathered from some of my previous posts. 

By the way, there have also been destructive fires in Columbia. And the Amazon basin is in drought. Studies indicate the Amazon drought was caused more by climate change than El Nino, which is also contributing to the problem. 

 Yes, the droughts and storms and other disasters brought on by climate change are bad enough as they directly end or ruin lives.

These increased and intensified disasters help create large scale economic turmoil, and political unrest as governments find themselves either unable or unwilling to help the populations affected by these disaster.

This spills over into other nations.  The United States border crisis is driven by poverty mixed with political chaos and violence in other nations. Climate change is likely a still small but growing part of that chaos and violence.

To say the least, the United States is not handling our border issues well at all. Politics over actual problem solving, apparently. 

We - and the rest of the world - need to get their act together. Otherwise, everything is just going to keep getting worse. Even for those of us left unscathed by the direct consequences of climate change.