NWS: Prepare For El Niño

Should the Inland Northwest prepare for the El Niño weather pattern this winter?  According to Marilyn Lohmann with the National Weather Service, the answer is yes.

“Currently seeing a lot of water off the coast of South America to the Dateline showing that warming that’s characteristic of El Niño.  And the climate models are now predicting a 65%-70% chance of an El Niño for the coming winter.”

Lohman says the Northwest was last impacted by El Niño between October 2014 and May 2016.  She says the 2014-2015 El Niño was weak, leading to dry mild conditions, and eventually a drought across the area.  2015-16’s pattern produce large amounts of snow in Northwest mountains.

“The 20014-2015 season was characterized by the very warm area of water called the blob by University of Washington climatologists of the coast of Washington.  So, we don’t have that set up at this time, but we’ll continue to monitor it as we head into fall and winter.”

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