El Niño is forecast to hit 3.6C this winter, the strongest in 155 years of records, and NOAA has already rewritten the hurricane forecast around it.
Here is what is actually happening…
Fourteen forecast models running 667 simulations now put the peak Niño 3.4 sea surface temperature at 3.6 degrees Celsius above normal.
Every El Niño ever documented, from 1877 through 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16, stopped between 2.69 and 2.75.
On July 9th, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center put the odds of a very strong event through October, November, and December at 81% and 97% that it holds into early spring.
The fingerprint is already in both oceans.
NOAA gives the Atlantic a 55% chance of a below-normal season, while the eastern Pacific runs its most active early pace on record.
We break down the mechanism, from the trade winds to the Kelvin wave to the thermocline, then the jet stream shift that loads the southern United States with storms and flooding from December through February, what the 1997-98 winter actually cost (189 lives nationally, about 850 million dollars in California), the FAO and World Food Programme appeal covering 8.8 million people, and the spring predictability barrier that scientists say could still break this forecast.
A strong El Niño loads the dice.
It does not throw them, and this is not a prediction that any single storm finds your town.
CHAPTERS
0:00 The Strongest El Niño in 155 Years
2:37 What the Niño 3.4 Number Actually Measures
5:00 How El Niño Forms: Trade Winds, Kelvin Waves, Thermocline
9:02 Two Oceans: Atlantic Shut Down, Pacific at Record Pace
12:47 The Jet Stream and Your Winter, Region by Region
14:24 What the 1997-98 Winter Actually Cost
16:21 The Global Bill: Hunger, Crops, Fire and Coral
20:14 The Honest Part: What Could Still Go Wrong
24:17 What To Do Before December
