SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Many climate forecasters are pointing toward North America seeing a El Niño weather pattern, but what does that mean for us here?
It doesn’t mean anything for a couple of months still, as the biggest effects for the northern hemisphere happen in the winter and spring months.
For us, we would likely see drier than normal conditions, as well as potentially warmer than average winter. Of course, with lake effect snow it’s entirely possible we'll see around average snowfall, this estimate would be based more on system snow, since the polar jet stream would be diverting system snow further to the north.
A Super El Niño this winter could also bring unfavorable wildfire conditions to our neighbors to the north.
“With the El Niño going through the winter, most likely, next spring could be a bit of a problem too. You know, we'll see what happens, and things don't always work out the way they're predicted. But I think there's a pretty good chance that they will this year.”
Richard Carr, a Wildfire Research Analyst from Natural Resources Canada says that while more research would have to be done to make a direct correlation between a busy wildfire season and the El Niño pattern, there is an influence.
“That's quite often either a strong La Niña or a strong El Niño. They can both produce fairly dry weather through the winter and spring. Just the El Niño produces a warmer type of pattern.”
The warmer pattern into the spring is all that's needed to make a difference. This year’s wildfires were spurred on by warm, windy conditions in the summer, a season not typically impacted by the El Niño pattern. But Carr theorizes the warm and windy conditions earlier could mean earlier smoke for Michiana.
“We tend to look at the winter and the following spring, because it tends to produce fairly dry winters, not much snow, and then of course the snow disappears early, and get that warm, dry, windy weather in the spring, and then we have some big fire problems.”
Wildfire smoke all depends on which way the wind is blowing, especially in the upper levels, so make sure you have that ABC57 Weather App so you’re the first to know when smoke will return to our area.