Tag Archives: weather

A still-growing El Niño set to bear down on U.S.

December 31, 2015News, ScienceEl Niño, weathernfpa

Here’s the latest from NASA on the looming El Niño weather pattern building in the Pacific . . .

The current strong El Niño brewing in the Pacific Ocean shows no signs of waning, as seen in the latest satellite image from the U.S./European Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 mission.

El Niño 2015 has already created weather chaos around the world. Over the next few months, forecasters expect the United States to feel its impacts as well.

The latest Jason-2 image bears a striking resemblance to one from December 1997, by Jason-2’s predecessor, the NASA/Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) Topex/Poseidon mission, during the last large El Niño event. Both reflect the classic pattern of a fully developed El Niño…

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‘When it comes to El Niños, there are no identical twins’

December 6, 2015ScienceEl Niño, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA, weathernfpa

Here is a nuanced, informative discussion of the looming 2015 El Niño from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory . . .

El Niño: An unusually warm pool of water off the west coast of South America, usually arriving around Christmas time, linked with complex, large-scale interactions between the atmosphere and ocean in the Pacific.

If you live anywhere El Niño has important impacts, you’ve heard forecasters say this year’s event looks just like the monster El Niño of 1997-98. NASA satellite images of the Pacific Ocean in November 1997 and November 2015 show almost identical, large pools of warm water in the eastern equatorial Pacific. The National Weather Service has forecast that impacts this winter will resemble those in 1997, when California and the South suffered floods, mudslides and tornadoes, while residents of the Upper Midwest saved $2 billion to $7 billion in heating costs throughout their unusually warm winter.

When it comes to El Niños, however, there are no identical twins. This year’s event hasn’t always resembled the ’97 one. Satellite observations from early ’97 and early ’15 show conditions in the Pacific Ocean that were, well, oceans apart.

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Warming weather brings flooding concerns

May 13, 2014Flood Information, Newsflood forecast, weathernfpa

Expected increased runoff from near-record snowpack is triggering warnings about rising river levels.

Reminder: The Flood Information page has links to flood-related information, including river levels, snowpack data and forecasts. . . .

Warm weather could cause area rivers to reach flood stage this week, due in part to a deep mountain snowpack. The National Weather Service in Missoula issued a hydrologic outlook on May 12 for much of western Montana in advance of the rising temperatures.

According to NWS-Missoula meteorologist Trent Smith, the snowpack in the Flathead Basin is 148 percent of normal for this time of year and if it melts rapidly that could cause problems for communities downstream. The snowpack is even larger in other areas.

“There is still plenty of moisture in the mountains and so those small rivers and streams will be running high this week,” Smith said.

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