Weather outlook for beach season

Hey all, as promised earlier in the summer I would you guys a forecast for the upcoming summer, more specifically the tropical region. Being that I'm waiting for my plots to get looked over at the office right now, I figured its as good of a time as any to write this bad boy up.. Plus its a pretty interesting day in the Mid-Atlantic weather wise as I'm sure a lot of you have noticed

So lets get started! As I'm sure you've all heard last year was a..... uh.... godzilla el nino

UVA needs to hire this guy to Photoshop in some empty stadium seats

first off, it might be a good idea to really get into what El Nino is, and what it does globally seeing as that is not common knowledge. El Nino (if you wanna get picky...El Nino Southern Oscillation) is an influx of warm water off the coast of South America. Normally, a pressure difference across the Pacific drives winds that push this warm water westward towards Australia, bringing with it rain and monsoons. However for whatever reason (still not totally understood by scientists) this gradient weakens thus weakening the winds, or even changing their direction from east to west, to west to east, which ultimately results in a buildup of this warm water off the coast of South America. Now the debate for what causes El Nino is a bit of a chicken and the egg debate, we know that both the pressure and the winds have effects on one another, but we're not entirely sure which one becomes weakened first and why...just that it happens

pretty good indicator of what happens

So, go figure, the oceans and the atmosphere are tied together pretty well. The ocean circulation drives a lot of what happens with global climate and circulation systems, which means if you have a giant wrench thrown into the system its probably going to royally screw some things up. So when El Nino occurs theres a lot of regional and international effects that can cause both drought in regions that are used to rain seasons and floods in places that are used to drier seasons.

this pretty much sums up the effects

I'll go into a brief synopsis of why each region experiences the effects they do

Australia and surrounding region - Less rainfall, as mentioned before the change in wind direction results in a blocking high pressure system forming over the region. This gives them much less rainfall than usual and as a result the area experiences drought. As a result the continent and surrounding islands experience spikes in forest fires

Africa - Eastern Africa experiences significantly increased rainfall. This most recent El Nino for instance, which lasted for three years, was met with happiness at first. Rainfall produced greater crop yields in the first growing season. However as the El Nino event increased in strength and prolongued, the region experienced heavy floods which destroyed crops ultimately resulting in famine and increased outbreak of disease. Western, Central, and Southern Africa all experienced above average temperatures and less rainfall than usual during the last El Nino event resulting in famine in those regions as well.

Asia - As warmer waters shift westward, rainfall goes with it. Regions that typically rely on monsoon season to provide rainfall for their crop yields suffer from massive drought and as a result loss of food and fire are frequented in the region. Famine broke out in this most recent El Nino in regions of southeast Asia and India. Crop yields were well below normal

North America - In North America, due to our increased resources in studying it we believe we have a general idea on regional effects. In Canada and most of the northern US (minus the northeast) winters are typically much more mild and warmer. I can personally vouch for this seeing as the winter this last year got below 0 for an entire day only 4 separate times in Wisconsin (really low amount) and the lakes had thawed out by late march (which was really early). In the Sourthern States things are typically a little bit cooler, with an increased rainfall, although there are fewer hurricanes (I'll get into that in another discussion). The Pacific northwest experiences drier conditions. Last but not least is the Pacific Southwest, which I'm calling BS on this chart on. Studies have indicated that there is little to no connection there with rainfall amounts, and if anything rainfall decreases or maintains its usual rate during El Nino events....so yeah, take that wikipedia

South America - Basically south America receives more rainfall and becomes more seasonal as a result of the warm water pool right off coast. The entire continent gets cooked up and becomes a little bit hotter as well during these events. Typically warmer waters favor mosquito development and thus increase the spread of viruses, so expect to see some papers come out the next few years about GODZILLA EL NINO's effects on the spread of the zika virus.

So yeah, all and all, El Nino is some pretty crappy stuff. But I have good news!

kinda wanted to fit professor farnsworth in there

We're transitioning out of an El Nino, and into El Nino's sister, the aptly named La Nina (La Nina literally translates to the girl, and El Nino the boy). We're not quite sure yet how severe this La Nina event is going to be, so I cant make any predictions there. However it could be fun coming up with a few names if it is another historic event. Is there a female godzilla? would they call it a godzilla La Nina, or would they come up with something else ridiculous? Either way, this spells some interesting upcoming years for the southern states. As I briefly stated earlier hurricanes are less frequent during El Nino years, which if people express enough interest I'd be more than happy to do a really extensive write-up on the why. If you haven't picked up on it yet La Nina is the exact opposite of El Nino.

seriously, take a careful look at this image and compare it to the el nino one from above

ITS THE EXACT OPPOSITE. This is because La Nina is an increase of the low over Australia, resulting in more warm water moving and staying in the western Pacific. more rain in Asia, less rain in the southern states, more rain in Australia and Pacific Northwest etc. Also expect increased hurricane activity depending on the severity of the event. So you literally just take everything I wrote previously and flip it. High pressure to low pressure, hot to cold, dry to wet...etc you get the point

What this means for this summer

Basically look at this summer as a transition year so it should be pretty moderate. We'll probably see an increase in the number of hurricanes relative to the last few years, but lets be real the last few years have been pretty slow. The next year is the summer you want to watch out for. La Nina will probably be bigger than usual (although maybe not godzilla big...maybe like hydra big) bringing in a lot more hurricane activity and rainfall in our typical vacation areas down south.

#hydraLaNina

hope this helped you guys understand some weather phenomena and some of the global impacts of El Nino a little bit. If you have any questions about anything letme know. Again if you guys are interested I'll be more than happy to cover my that I did last night on La Nina/El Nino's effects on regional hurricane genesis and development. It'll get into a lot of details about hurricane formation too

GO HOKIES!