Tuesday, February 19, 2008
La Nina Pattern Continues
Okay, at the risk of having some global warming folks respond to me I will tackle this issue again. The La Nina pattern continues for all of the Midwest. Take a look at snowfall totals so far. We have about 28" just a couple of inches below our average for the year. But places like Madison, Wisconsin have about so far the city has received about 85" of snow! That's almost triple the average. Madison on average receives about 35 inches of snowfall annually. That's close to Fort Wayne's average of 32 inches. Meanwhile, just down the road Rockford, Illinois has almost 60 inches of snow. So what does this have to do with La Nina? La Nina is the cooling of sea surface temperatures in Pacific. Many times instead of weakening weather systems and a 'split flow' which takes the energy from weather systems and spilts the energy this pattern actually encourages a very strong polar jet stream. Systems have brought northern regions much more snowfall and colder temperatures than normal. So before I get the comment from my global warming fan maybe this might be an argument in global cooling:) Just kidding!
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4 comments:
Should La Nina continue into March & April, I fear we may be for a turbulent tornado season.
Pete,
La Nina/El Nino is a Winter time pattern. In fact, El Nino refers to the child or the Christ child in Espanol because it was first noticed by Peruvian fisherman around Christmas time. During the Spring the sea surface temperatures begin to go back to normal. The wind patterns are not as strong either. The dominant jet stream is pushed northward so it shouldn't be a problem after March.
When does the the La Nina pattern become apparent? I remember at the begining of this winter when it was projected (by NOAA maybe?) that temperatures would be average or above average. I know we've had our share of warm days, but overall I think temperatures have been below average, correct?
Joe,
While the average temperature in January was about 3 degrees above normal I think one could argue that the last two weeks were well below normal. February is looking like below normal temperatures as well. This pattern usually begins to show up around December and last through March. So sometimes it's difficult to see it in advance of this time period.
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