El Nino Expected To Bring More Rain To Area

An El Nino forming out West is expected to bring more rain to the Upper Cumberland.

News Talk 94.1’s Chief Meteorologist Rob Carolan said a warming Pacific Ocean means the current wet weather pattern will likely continue throughout the fall.

“When El Nino develops during this time of year, a lot of times there’s a correlation with above-normal precipitation for the fall season,” Carolan said. “We’ve already seen, in the local area, some places have had in excess of 55 inches of rain for the year so far, which put us anywhere from 12 to 14 inches above normal. A wet fall season means we are going to come in with even more precipitation than normal.”

Carolan said the strength of the El Nino will help determine what type of winter weather the region can expect.

“we’re not sure yet how strong the El Nino is going to be because it’s just now in the process of developing,” Carolan said. “We had one several years ago that ended up producing a very wet and mild winter across the U.S., but there was very little snow. We have to see how intense this one gets. If it’s weak to moderate it may not mean we are in for a particularly snowy winter, but it may mean that we are more exposed for some potential ice storms.”

Carolan said if Upper Cumberland residents haven’t got used to the rainy weather by now, they will certainly have a chance to over the next few months.

“It certainly looks like the wet pattern if going to develop. In fact, we’re already seeing a storm system developing off the coast of Baja, Mexico that’s going to be turning into a hurricane,” Carolan said. “It looks like it’s going to recurve across the continent next week and bring us additional rainfall.”

Carolan said that storm will be followed by yet another system that could target the Central U.S. the following week.

El Nino was first discovered in the 17th and 18th century by fisherman looking for anchovies off the western coast of South America, Carolan said.

“They noticed that some years around Christmas time there were no fish and other years there were,” Carolan said. “What it correlated to was water temperatures off the western coast of South America. In the 20th century, meteorologist began to correlate those warming temperatures in the pacific with changes in the weather across the Northern Hemisphere during summer and winter seasons.”

Warmer than normal water temperatures indicate an El Nino and cooler than normal temperatures are known as El Nina.

Carolan said water temperatures in the western and central part of the Pacific Ocean have already started warming up, but the surface waters in the eastern Pacific have been lagging.

“Within the last two weeks they have started to warm significantly,” Carolan said. “It looks like we are probably going to be dealing with a full-blown El Nino by the time we get into the month of November.”