Climate “Experts” Predicting Big Freeze this Winter, Thanks to El Niño
Meanwhile, low US heating oil stockpiles may cause a winter of discontent.
As we recover from the time change this week and begin making plans for Thanksgiving, climate “experts” are predicting that this year’s winter will be frigid — thanks to the El Niño weather pattern.
El Niño – which translates to ‘little boy’ in Spanish – is caused by a shift in the distribution of warm water in the Pacific Ocean around the equator.
The shift has a big impact on weather patterns around the globe – and this year’s El Niño is expected to be the strongest since 2015 – which saw the warmest U.S. winter on record.
The new maps show that – during strong El Niño seasons – the northern U.S. is usually drier, while the southern U.S. typically is wetter and snowier.
…During stronger El Niño winters, there is more snow than average in the Midwest area of the U.S. and western states like Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.
New England confronts far less snow than normal during intense El Niño seasons – New York, Vermont and parts of Maine are likely to see far less snowfall this winter than the average from 1991-2020.
Of course, the “experts” will use “climate change” as an excuse, if these projections prove to be wrong.
“El Niño nudges the odds in favor of certain climate outcomes, but never ensures them,” writes [Michelle L’Heureux, a meteorologist with the Climate Prediction Center].
There’s also the impact of climate change, which has meant less snowy winters over time for much of the U.S. On the other hand, a freak snowstorm can always defy the odds, even during an El Niño year.
In its most recent outlook, the Climate Prediction Center said there is a 75% to 85% chance that we see a “strong” El Niño this winter. There’s a 30% chance it ends up being one of the strongest ever recorded.
Legal Insurrection readers will recall that the storms of 2023 ended the drought conditions impacting California. Portions of the state are now bracing for more flooding.
“A 45% chance of above normal precipitation for December through February,” said David Spector, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford.
Local experts say parts of Central California have been left in a more vulnerable position due to the torrential rains and historic snowpack of 243% above the average state level.
“Central California can expect similar or worse impacts compared to last winter even if less rain or snow falls than last year,” added Spector.
One last scientific point: Water Vapor is, itself, a greenhouse gas.
Latest information for El Niño is that it now has moved into a strong category. This means that we have a powerful duel effect of higher than average Water Vapour in the atmosphere, from last year’s Underwater Volcanic Eruption in Tonga and the Strong El Niño. WV is the main GHG. pic.twitter.com/y5RNziMt9p
— Climate Realist (@ClimateRealists) November 6, 2023
And some good news is that efforts to get information about real climate science are beginning to work.
Looks like Michael Mann's communication strategy isn't working so well. A recent series of Associated Press and U. Chicago polls shows only a minority of Americans believe recent warming is mostly caused by humanshttps://t.co/SYvzSESBco
— Judith Curry (@curryja) November 6, 2023
As we prepare for a significant El Niño weather pattern, it would be comforting for our nation to have reliable energy supplies for the upcoming freeze. Sadly, projections show that this will not likely be the case.
Americans could face a sticker shock with their heating bills this winter, especially if it is a chilly one, due to unusually low U.S. stockpiles of distillate fuels following OPEC+ crude supply cuts and higher demand from Europe, analysts said.
Distillate inventories, which include diesel and heating oil, were by late August about 15% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the Energy Information Administration.
At below 118 million barrels, stocks represented around 31 days of supply.
“We are living barrel to barrel and there is just no room for errors in the system,” Price Futures Group analyst Phil Flynn said. “If we get a cold winter, there are going to be significant price shocks.”
According to my assessment, we are in for a winter of severe economic discontent.
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Comments
El Niño? The “boy”? I refuse to acknowledge this rascist weather pattern.
Wait. The Boy. Would that not be sexist?
1. The full name is Little Boy. They couldn’t use Fat Man because it was already taken by Chris Christie.
2. Further, it’s in Spanish. You have to press one if you want English.
3. In retrospect, Little White Dove or Running Bear would have been better choices. Personally, I prefer Gentle Bear.
Little boy would be Niñito. Niño is boy.
-signed- your friendly neighborhood pædant.
Si señor.
It was anchovy fishermen in Peru who first noticed and named El Niño events in the tropical Pacific hundreds of years ago. Their catches would fluctuate and the largest declines were seen near Christmas when the ocean was at its warmest. The anchovies swam so deep to find cooler water that the fisherman caught nothing and everybody starved including the birds. They called it El Niño de Navidad, the boy of Christmas.
Running Bear by Johnny Preston’ 1959
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9V-9dSPb_A
Thanks!
Any weather pattern being pushed and prodded by winds from the left should be named “Robinette”.
Otherwise known as Joe Blow
Agreed. May I suggest El viento de género neutro.
Las personas waiting in line at Disney World do it on the pavement.
No, because there’s also La Niña. If you like we can pretend that there are also 55 other such patterns, one for each of the other genders, but they’re too small to be detected with current instruments, in proportion to those genders’ frequency in the population.
They’re like the 4th-10th dimensions of string theory: such small, tight spirals that they can’t even be detected.
Accidental down vote.
I thought “El Nino” was so-called because it typically happens during the winter season, hence around Christmas time, hence “El Nino” is an oblique reference to the Christ Child.
Don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what I’ve always heard.
I think that is probably the correct etymology. But the illiterate woke retards tearing down statutes and renaming birds wouldn’t understand that.
meant “statues,” well played auto correct, you win again.
Global warming: Is there anything it can’t do?
It’s a terrible dessert topping, and does not help relieve the heartbreak of psoriasis.
Polar ice is melting which is causing polar bears to migrate south. They’ve actually started sharing habitat with Friendly Grizzlys and are even interbreeding with the more Gentle ones. I’m not sure if they are “pizzlies” or “grolars” but in either case you must hide your dessert. But no more psoriasis fur shure.
Neither. Polar bears have changed coordinates, and are not Cartesian bears.
As for psoriasis: it can be a skin issue or hæmorhoids. It all depends on how you pronounce it.
;-{)}}}
Ouchie ouchie. Ouch. Ouch. Boo boo fur shure.
Fix Joe Buythem’s economy.
Jock Itch. It can not prevent Jock Itch…or America destroying plans by Brandon & Co like the open border letting thousands of terrorists in among the 10,000,000 illegal invaders
Water vapor isn’t just a “greenhouse gas”, it is THE greenhouse gas, providing more than 95% of the “greenhouse effect” here on Earth. One source for this biased, misleading, contradictory right-wing information is…a US dot-gov agency, NOAA.
When water vapor is included in any graph of relative warming contribution CO2 is literally invisible on the graph. This is why climate articles used to have a footnote stating something like “Water vapor omitted”, but they’ve even deleted that since “it’s common knowledge”. Uh, no, they simply don’t want to admit the whole thing is BS, which is blatantly evident when water vapor is included.
Is this the same crowd that tell us EVERY YEAR that it’s going to be an above average hurricane season?
That’s not how averages work. That’s not how any of this works.
We we not supposed to have 25 or something this year? I’ve noticed that when the endless death and destruction continually refuses to play along the Doom cultists have switched to saying they may be fewer but far stronger and more devastating
Pointing towards Florida’s monetary increase from the storms. Of course they neglect to mention the people pouring into the state building more homes and the increase in property values.
Why should we pay attention to “Climate Realist” if he/she/it can’t even spell and punctuate correctly?
.
El Nino is a real phenomenon though. In February I had a guy come in and clear out many of the trees around the house to expand my ‘yard’ to about two acres. I’ve been chopping/splitting firewood all summer/fall and have way more than I will use in several years. All stacked high and dry for the supplemental heat of the fireplace in the house and primary heat of the woodstove in my barn/workshop.
Wow. It’s almost like the climate is a dynamic, ever-changing system. But obviously, mankind is responsible for any of the bad stuff. 🙄
Perception will play a role too. Where I’m at the winters have been mild for some years now so if we get more snow (as some local weather-guessers have predicted) some people will howl that it’s “Snowmageddon” or something equally silly.
The first day we had morning temps hit 32 F the local news was shrieking “Hypothermia Alert!”. When I was growing up it was just “uh, you might want to put a jacket on”.
My son can be a better weather guesser than the “professional” meteorologist (whatever that term means).
In the winter, he goes from shorts and a hoodie, then to a coat with shorts, to eventually a coat and jeans.
At that point, I am aware that we have reached sub zero temperatures.
Historical perspective is not a part of “climate science”. Well, not the Current Thing version anyway.
Kamala Harris says that if we need to, we can lower the temperature dramatically just by switching from Fahrenheit to Celsius.
Perhaps Sandy O’Cortex will suggest that we send a spaceship toward the sun and we deploy reflectors to direct sunlight to where we needs it the most.
Vin Diesel said he’s changing his name to Vin Solar.
Don Day has an excellent discussion of The Most Baddest Evil El Nino Ever!!
It starts at about 5:10 of today’s weather blog.
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/11/08/don-day-wyoming-weather-forecast-thursday-november-9-2023/
Man, that KING 5 news clip out of Seattle is a complete load of hokum. The footage of snow is clearly the midwest – the license plate on the car is not a WA plate – and almost NO ONE in western WA owns a snow blower. Then the weather guy goes on to talk about rainfall where the map legend indicates it’s “typical” in the eastern half of the state – 125-275 miles east of Seattle. And the 2nd temperature map indicates “well above” normal temperatures for the entire state. Here on the north Olympic Peninsula we often see 40-45F in winter. So what I get from the charts and graphs is a typical damp winter in the 40’s or higher.
So where does the SNOWMAGEDDON footage of a typical midwest winter fit in? Slapdash news casting at it’s finest! That’s our Seattle KING5 “trusted” news source. Maybe it’s “trusted … for consistent total BS” …
These clowns can’t accurately tell us what the weather will be tomorrow, much less, next year
Meanwhile at home it snowed during the first week of deer season much like it did over 50yrs ago when I started to go to deer camp.
Southcentral Alaska got dumped on last two days…. plenty of snow. El Nino is in El Grande Blanco Norte for sure. As with diver64… like the good old days. Except the power is off and a little nippy. The only drawback…. moose and deer populations suffer for future hunting.
God bless being able to live in Phoenix.
All I have to worry about this year is more of the same Global Looning.
Here in NC it was almost 80 yesterday. Today it cooled off into the upper 50’s which ain’t bad for November. When I lived in The Valley Of The Sun the winter weather was excellent. I preferred Flagstaff where I went to college, though. Get cold then drive down 17, drop off the rim and it’s 75 just like that
Leslie Eastman: One last scientific point: Water Vapor is, itself, a greenhouse gas.
That’s right! As scientists have known for over a century, water vapor is in integral part of the climate system. See Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground, Philosophical Magazine 1896.
The Earth is a watery world, so the amount of atmospheric water vapor depends largely on its temperature. If the Earth warms, for whatever reason, atmospheric water vapor increases, amplifying the warming. If the Earth cools, for whatever reason, atmospheric water vapor decreases, amplifying the cooling. Positive feedbacks (water vapor, oceanic CO2, and albedo) help explain the see-sawing of the Earth between ice ages and ice-free ages.
Anthropogenic greenhouse gases tend to warm the Earth’s surface. This causes increased evaporation, which amplifies the warming trend.