Infant Lowly

Forecasters say winter temperature and snow depend on El Niño weather pattern

Hoping for a White Christmas? Then you’d better hope for El Niño.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has slightly lowered the probability of El Niño conditions occurring this winter to 58 percent, but experts here still hope the weather phenomenon will emerge because it could mean more precipitation for parched New Mexico.

El Niño happens when weakening trade winds allow the higher, hotter equatorial waters in the western Pacific Ocean to travel to the lower, cooler eastern equatorial waters, according to NOAA. The oscillation warms sea waters near the coasts of the Americas, NOAA says, an occurrence originally recognized by fishermen off the coasts of Ecuador and Peru. They came up with the name that refers to the infant Jesus because of El Niño's tendency to arrive during Christmas time, according to NOAA.

Those warmer sea waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean power thunderstorms in the area. New Mexico, especially the lower half of the state, stands in the Pacific jet stream's storm track, which means storms here are also more active during El Niño periods.

Kerry Jones, an Albuquerque meteorologist for the National Weather Service, says that New Mexico hasn't seen frequent late-season snowstorms since the winter of 2009 to 2010.

With the current long-term outlook, however, New Mexico could get precipitation as late as February, March and even April, he says.

The storm track created by El Niño from the Pacific would favor the south central and southwest parts of the state, Jones says, but there's also "collective optimism" that Northern New Mexico and even southern Colorado would benefit from the "more productive" storms that would move slower, at a lower altitude and "tap into a much richer moisture supply."

In any event, winter storms would help build up the snowpack, potentially boosting revenue for ski areas during the season as well as helping relieve drought conditions. According to the latest US Drought Monitor data, nearly 63 percent of New Mexico is in moderate to extreme drought, while almost 28 percent of the state remains in severe to extreme drought.

"The bottom line is we are into a pattern that we have not seen in several seasons, so that's good news, I think," Jones says. "And the pattern that we hopefully see play out is one that's going to bring increased chances of precipitation."

As for temperatures, the outlook for December, January and February is hedging odds for a cooler-than-average winter period, Jones says.

Forecasts of El Niño are based on real-time data from a "network of buoys" operated by NOAA along the equatorial band that track information on Pacific temperatures, currents and winds.

Seasonal forecasts based on that data are becoming more and more reliable, says Jones. But NOAA cautions that those predications only identify likely outcomes, and there's still a coin-flip's chance that El Niño won't rear its head this winter.

Of course, Americans have been in the weather prediction ballgame since the country's inception. In 1792, for instance, Robert B Thomas, founder of the Old Farmer's Almanac, theorized that weather on Earth is influenced by magnetic storms on the surface of the sun known as sunspots, explains the almanac publication of its Region 14 forecast, which includes New Mexico.

Writers now use a "secret formula" to make predictions, including solar science, climatology and meteorology, it says.

The publication says that a solar cycle that began in 2008 has been "the smallest in almost 100 years" and as solar activity declines, "we expect temperatures in much of the nation to be below normal for this winter and above normal next summer."

But Deirdre Kann, a National Weather Service meteorologist, says changes of solar output during the 11-year sunspot cycle aren't used by meteorologists to predict weather.

"There is a relationship with the sunspots and the amount of energy the sun puts out," she says. "But it only changes about 0.1 percent. And so in terms of doing a climate outlook—'Is it going to be warmer than normal? Is it going to be cooler? Is it going to be wetter? Is it going to be drier?'—there are other climate modes of variability that contribute more than these minor changes in the solar output in the 11-year scale."

For what it's worth, the Old Farmer's Almanac is predicting a "cold, snowy" winter for most of the state, which is in line with other experts' predictions. Among the publication's "key factors in coming weather patterns"? The fact that "many are forecasting" a "warm El Niño phase."

To Jones, of the National Weather Service, one thing's certain.

"It's like a snowflake," he says. "Every winter season is unique in how it plays out."

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