El Niño
Change is in the Air
Published in the EarthSphere Blog
We have been graced with the pleasurable company of La Niña for the past three years, helping to keep the Pacific NW moister and sparking increased hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean. The fact is, three consecutive years of La Niña conditions is quite unusual. Individual episodes of La Niña and her brother El Niño usually don’t last that long. These brother and sister weather conditions are alternating phases of a natural Pacific Ocean weather pattern called the “El Niño-Southern Oscillation” (ENSO). NOAA announced in February that during the spring and summer of 2023, we would probably move into ENSO-neutral conditions, followed by the long-awaited arrival of the baby boy, El Niño.
El Niño, meaning the little boy or Christ child in Spanish, gets its name from the tendency for El Niño conditions to peak during December, near Christmas. The culmination of a two-year El Niño in 2016 resulted in Earth’s hottest year on record, indicating that 2023 could be a burner. “Could be” is the operative term since long-range weather predictions are notoriously unpredictable.
ENSO conditions are driven by the wind. Equatorial trade winds in the Pacific blow from east to west and act as the catalyst for ENSO changes. La Niña starts along the western coast of South America when the trade winds…
