Greater than 90% chance of El Niño persisting into Northern Hemisphere winter | Hacker News Reader

Greater than 90% chance of El Niño persisting into Northern Hemisphere winter

cpc.ncep.noaa.gov

177 pointsgeox116 comments

Global sea surface temperature for all of 2023 have been above 2 standard deviations of the 1982-2011 mean:

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/

Warming temperatures seem linked to several major climate tipping points. This new study suggests it may disable the global ocean circulation system within just three decades:

https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-ocean-circulat...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05762-w

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_points_in_the_climate_...

It's amazing but harrowing that we can study this stuff but somehow can't get it together enough to get along and stop destroying the planet.

"raising awareness" doesn't require personal sacrifice

Those with the power to change things have the power to suffer no negative effects.

I'd suggest a slight edit to this: Those with the power to change things believe they have the power to suffer no negative effects.

Billionaires can already live in underground luxury bunkers that can withstand a nuclear Armageddon for decades.

With accelerating tech, their ability to opt out of global catastrophic risks also accelerates. Not so for the rest of us.

I think that's what they believe, but I buy Douglas Rushkoff's argument that this is a collective illusion on the part of the billionaire class. See https://rushkoff.com/books/survival-of-the-richest-escape-fa...

There’s a lot of Russian billionaires discovering that their freedoms aren’t as unlimited as they thought…

Don’t you think billionaires would also rather sip cocktails on a beautiful beach vs their concrete bunker? There’s only so much you can do to spruce up a bunker. They’re not rooting for global warming, as a class.

This is a ridiculous take. You realise Pakistan is collapsing right now because Europe bought all the LNG and it’s super expensive now? I.e if you start taxing energy more or making it less abundant you will collapse societies.

How about France? The Arab springs?

This is not about the elites. Forcing everyone into less consumption will basically lead to revolutions.

The only way out of this is technology. You can’t force people into more expensive food and living conditions. You have to fail forwards.

Unfortunately it seems like most environmentalists prefer complete collapse of society, and depopulation, to technological progress

Edit: and btw, how are you gonna stop China building coal plants? Diplomacy? Seems unlikely to work. Military prevention?

There are quite a few billion people looking forward to the convenience of their own vehicle and living in their own detached house and visiting tropical destinations and eating avocados all year. I do not think any leader is going to be able to placate the population by telling them to consume less to maybe help future generations.

Tax energy accordingly, that's it

And then what?

Best of luck winning with that campaign slogan.

They have my vote

I'm not sure taxing things is the way to fundamentally alter the way of living in almost every society on the planet.

Markets & incentives are the only things that ever have.

Yeah, fortunately it looks like there may be things that can be done which reduce GHG emissions while also enabling economic development. It’s already been the case for a while that developed countries have continued to grow while their emissions have decreased (even when accounting for trade – ie ‘offshoring’ of emissions). Hopefully developing countries will be able to better take advantage of the cheaper energy[1] provided by solar to develop faster. They don’t need to go through the same GHG-heavy steps much like they don’t need to develop a pony express or telegraph network. Though my understanding of economic development is that there are no east recipes to make it happen so I don’t really know how it will go. Note that I’m only really talking about GHG emissions and not other kinds of pollution or environmental harm.

[1] obviously the advantage may not be so great (or even an advantage) if labour costs are different or if coal plants are cheaper. It still has a disadvantage of all costs being weighted towards installation time and the advantage of not requiring the whole thing to be installed at once.

And even if they all rode the bus and lived in the smallest apartment possible.. we would still be basically in the same problem.

Are you suggesting emissions due to human consumption are negligible factors in climate change?

Otherwise, I presume emissions = energy consumed = mass * distances the mass is moved.

No I'm suggesting that consumer vehicles and residential use are relatively minor and small shifts will indeed have small outcomes.

We basically need to massively downscale or change the industrial products, supply chains and industrial power solutions in play.

Arguing about sedans vs SUVs or bus riding is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.

Where does all the demand for energy come from? Does it not come from people wanting to live on a quarter acre lot with their own car? Which then necessitates space for parking lots and huge roads? Which then necessitates transporting goods further and further?

Where does the demand for shipping cheap plastics and electronics across oceans come from?

“Industrial” energy use is a function of consumer demand. At the end of the day, more people wanting more things (including space) and wanting to go more places is going to be the root cause, and the solution has to start there, barring a miraculous discovery of a cheap energy source without the current problems.

> Where does all the demand for energy come from? Does it not come from people wanting to live on a quarter acre lot with their own car?

How much steel is used in your house and your car? How many KW does it take to run an industrial smelter?

How much more steel is used if your house is twice as big?

How much steel per sq ft of yard do you need? (I suppose your fencing needs nails...)

> Where does the demand for shipping cheap plastics and electronics across oceans come from?

And do you think a smaller house will reduce that? How small of a house do you need before that demand radically drops?

> Which then necessitates transporting goods further and further?

And it's not the "last mile" (to the consumer) part that requires the energy. It's the raw materials to the refinery, the processed meterials to the fabs, the chiplets to the assembler, the boards to the injection molding plant, the molded parts to the distribution warehouse, the distribution warehouse to the seller, the seller to the reseller, then finally the reseller to the consumer.

Even if you set up camp in the Amazon warehouse, how much energy savings is that? And that is ONLY transport.

Industrial use itself, excluding transport, is huge. Building homes (and much worse for building skyscrapers). Your 250T crane wasn't built in town. Neither was the fleet of trucks to level land. Neither are the several thousand feet of fire sprinkler tubing.

In The Matrix we will have all these things for everyone, on demand, without the ecological debt.

That's not a joke. We can't help ourselves to act sooner. Later eventually the answer will be a virtual existence. Like it or not it solves all the major problems we currently face. It's only a matter of time for working out the details.

As what we humans seek most is social reward, this is indeed the smallest path to achieve this goal.

In a way, people participating in massive games, deep involvement in social networks, but also MOOCs and Internet competitions for scholars with a leaderboard such as Kaggle are leading the way.

Maybe that's the bright future Musk sees for Twitter.

If population control is part of the solution then maybe we can all get by with a lot less reduction in our consumption. It baffles me that this part of the solution is never mentioned in these discussions.

Isn't that essentially saying "other people should die so I don't have to give up my luxuries"?

People won’t exist who might otherwise have existed.

There is strong evidence that when women have agency, as well as access to education and contraceptives, the fertility rate plummets. Lean into providing those mechanisms.

The problem with this logic is that it makes no sense with the current world population if what you want is to keep lavish western living standards for everyone. Because those living standards already require a completely unsustainable level of consumption just to sustain that level for the west alone. To get consumption to sustainable levels, slowing down growth isn't enough. You'd need to reduce the population drastically. And it's not like we have time to wait around several generations. Taken to its conclusion, the GP's idea can only work if genocide is perpetrated.

So yes, improving education and women's rights are very important, and do slow down population growth. But while this helps, it doesn't preclude the need for the level of consumption in industrialised societies to go down drastically.

> Taken to its conclusion, the GP's idea can only work if genocide is perpetrated.

Or we collectively do nothing when hundreds of millions or billions of people die from outlier wet bulb temp heat and other climate change effects. Which is very likely to be the default path (not that I agree with this btw, making an observation that everyone is operating bau). I suppose you could call this genocide by inaction.

Tell a person “have as many as you want” and they’ll have none. Tell them they can’t have one and they’ll raise a rebellion.

And now it’s Godwin time. Some movements were actually pretty effective in „population control“ in the past.

If you want to „control population“ please start yourself and with your family.

I for example don’t want to see any human population „controlled“ by anyone.

This is not where the majority of emissions come from

Ultimately emissions are created to manufacture things humans want. The poster was just giving examples.

Here in the UK at least, the media has encouraged support for action against climate change by lying about exactly this. They've run talking points like "Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions" that only count where the fossil fuels are produced, not even where they're burned let alone the end consumers of the products. Of course, it's not possible to stop only production and not consumption so this misleads readers about the actual consequences of doing so and who's affected, but it worked to convince people that the only reason governments haven't shut down fossil fuel production because they're in the pockets of Big Oil.

At the same time, we've had a cost of living crisis caused by inadequate global fossil fuel production and all the same publications attacking big oil and the government for the fact that people can't afford to consume as much and telling people that drops in the amount they can buy with their income are caused by corporations and the goverment plotting to enrich themselves at the public's expense. In reality, of course, it's a consequence of the global economy not being able to produce as much of the things people want and further cuts to fossil fuel production would makes everyone even poorer.

What they need to do is provide enough education and reliable sustenance that the birth rates fully drop below replacement and the future generations are smaller and put less exponential growth pressure on the planet's resources and systems.

«We already have access to far more energy than we could possibly use on earth for any technology that's actually buildable. But we're not using it because we don't have the species IQ to make the right choices.»

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28232083

(One of the deepest comments I ever read on HN.)

Planet isn't going to be destroyed. Some areas might become uninhabitable (like Sahara desert or Arabian peninsula), but some other areas might end up better suited for human life or more desirable.

> Global sea surface temperature for all of 2023 have been above 2 standard deviations of the 1982-2011 mean

I'm not arguing about the consequences of this, but it doesn't mean much to say that a normal distribution exceeds the mean by 2 standard deviations 2.1% of the time - that's mathematics, not climatology. It's been about 41 years since 1982, and 1 / 41 = 2.4%.

It's the positive trend that's significant, not the simple fact of variation.

I get your point, however in this case the trend is clearly positive:

https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...

https://climate.copernicus.eu/climate-indicators/sea-surface...

I might be wrong but I don't think that data on a clear linear trend is actually normally distributed at all

surprised, i need to dig into the links, but California had a cold winter this year and even last year I remember the water being on the chilly side. I meant to dig into this a bit more, but bouys off the coast showed the water was 3 degrees colder then last year. mid 50s in san diego.

That study doesn’t say that global circulation will be disabled. And the article suggests that fears of circulation stopping in the northern hemisphere, based on previous observations, were overblown.

Climate is changing, but no one is predicting global scale tipping points to be reached until next century.

What does this mean?

>The most recent IRI plume also indicates El Niño is likely to form during the May-July season and persist into the winter.

I was confused by the post's title but it appears El Nino is 90% likely to increase temperatures this year from May - Winter. I don't know how different this is from a normal El Nino, nor do I know if 90% is higher or lower than average.

What El Niño means depends wildly on where you live.

In California, particularly Southern California, an El Niño winter is more likely wetter than usual. The 1997-1998 winter comes to mind.

These are all statistical predictions based on previous years, and any individual year can vary wildly from average. In addition, climate change makes historical data increasingly irrelevant. So, take any forecast of the weather six months into the future with a grain of salt!

I first moved to San Francisco in early 1997. I was absolutely flabbergasted at the amount of rain we got that winter. It just never stopped raining. For months. My distant memory of it was that it started raining just before Thanksgiving (when I had a cousin visit, which is why I remember) and then just didn't stop until like May of 1998. I just looked it up: 18 days of rain in November, 10 in December, 22 in January, 20 in February, 14 in March, 10 in April and 14 in May. Nice to know my 25 year old memory wasn't that bad.

I went to Tahoe for the first time that winter and the snowpack was absolutely absurd. Like 20 feet. The ski area parking lot I went to had a wall of snow carved out next to the cars. I have a sideways panoramic photo taken of myself next to it to remember it by.

My dumb brain read it first as "10~14 is a small number, not that bad". But it's really not small, I can't imagine having rain almost every two days, or basically all month in January when it's already darker and colder.

I am of the "there's no bad weather only bad clothing" camp, but that much quasi-continuous rain in the winter is a seriously depressing thought. Even the monsoon in SEA only lasts a month or so and it's kinda warm.

I was in SF for that winter. I remember one time running a half block from a cab to a bar and it was like we jumped into a pool. Even our jeans were soaked through.

I think that was also the winter where it snowed, very briefly, in part of SF. No accumulation, but it was memorable.

I was walking around Upper Haight thinking "hm, it smells like snow". I went into a shop, and emerged 10 minutes later to find it lightly snowing.

Also, I think, the winter where we had a couple thunderstorms.

As I recall, it was pretty bad in 1982, too.

[0] https://pubs.usgs.gov/wri/1988/4236/report.pdf

> National forecasters said on Thursday that the climate pattern system, known for bringing record rainfall in South America, more winter storms in the U.S West and South, and droughts in southern Asia, Indonesia and Australia, is expected to make its official return within a few months and has a strong chance of lasting the rest of the year. > > El Niño is a climate pattern that naturally occurs every two to seven years when ocean surface temperatures warm in the eastern Pacific.

From: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/el-nino-returns-2023/

"El Niño usually brings a quieter Atlantic hurricane season and more hurricane activity in the Pacific, while La Niña does the opposite — a dynamic that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has compared to a seesaw.

El Niño's warmer waters can also push the Pacific jet stream south. When that happens, the NOAA says, "areas in the northern U.S. and Canada are dryer and warmer than usual. But in the U.S. Gulf Coast and Southeast, these periods are wetter than usual and have increased flooding.""

-- https://www.npr.org/2023/05/03/1173734262/el-nino-2023-weath...

From CBS News[1] :

> El Niño is a climate pattern that naturally occurs every two to seven years when ocean surface temperatures warm in the eastern Pacific.

From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)[2]:

> El Niño can affect our weather significantly. The warmer waters cause the Pacific jet stream to move south of its neutral position. With this shift, areas in the northern U.S. and Canada are dryer and warmer than usual. But in the U.S. Gulf Coast and Southeast, these periods are wetter than usual and have increased flooding.

> El Niño also has a strong effect on marine life off the Pacific coast. During normal conditions, upwelling brings water from the depths to the surface; this water is cold and nutrient rich. During El Niño, upwelling weakens or stops altogether. Without the nutrients from the deep, there are fewer phytoplankton off the coast. This affects fish that eat phytoplankton and, in turn, affects everything that eats fish. The warmer waters can also bring tropical species, like yellowtail and albacore tuna, into areas that are normally too cold.

As far as the Continental United States is concerned, this means the Northern half of the country will be warmer than usual, the Southern half of the country will be wetter than usual, and the Northeast in particular will be drier than usual.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/el-nino-returns-2023/

[2]https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ninonina.html

What causes El Niño to happen every few years? What mechanism drives the phenomenon? I was thinking maybe sun spots, but sun spots have 11 year cycles on average, so I don't think it's the cause. Why doesn't El Niño happen every year, like hurricanes?

Quoting from https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/ENSO:

"El Niño and La Niña reflect the two end points of an oscillation in the Pacific Ocean. The cycle is not fully understood, but the times series illustrates that the cycle swings back and forth every 3-7 years. Often, El Niño is followed immediately by La Niña, as if the warm water is sloshing back and forth across the Pacific. The development of El Niño events is linked to the trade winds. El Niño occurs when the trade winds are weaker than normal, and La Niña occurs when they are stronger than normal. Both cycles typically peak in December.

El Niño and La Niña aren’t the only cycles evident in this image series. The Pacific Ocean is moody: It turns slightly hot or slightly cold every couple of years. This bi-annual pattern isn’t the distinctive, well-defined stripe of warm ocean waters near the equator typical of El Niño, but rather, a general warming of the ocean.

On top of the two-year warm/cold cycle and the El Niño/La Niña pattern is a broader decadal cycle in which the Pacific has a warm and a cool phase. In the 1990s, the Pacific was in a warm phase. The strong El Niño of 1997 marked the end of the warm phase."

Was wondering the same. Perhaps there’s natural oscillation just because how continents are laid out.

Putting my money on the moon.

There’s nothing we could do to this planet (including climate change, ocean acidification , or even “launch all the nukes”) that would make it less hospitable to humanity than the moon/mars.

I assume they meant the cycling was caused by the moon, not that we should move there.

Yes, exactly that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The most of the heat created by all the CO2 we dump into the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean.

No, it's a pattern that doesn't require man. The earliest record of El Niño was 13k years ago. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Niño

Coriolis. There are timescales set up by two big mechanisms: one is westward-propagating oceanic Rossby [0] waves just to the north and south of the equator and the other is eastward-propagating Kelvin [1] waves along the equator which hit the Peruvian coast, split in two and flow north and south bouncing along the coast. Sloshing back and forth.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossby_wave

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_wave

It's ultimately because of the sun and the rotation of the Earth, which causes wind, which causes movement in oceans surface temperatures...

Really, what does it mean?

More havoc more often

Even though it's a known cyclical pattern, there's just enough time between where people forget, so the news can sensationalize it.

For example, the last strong one was 2015-2016.

The baseline is going up, and people are already dying due to weather extremes. A cyclic pattern that increases extremes is a legitimate cause for concern in each year it occurs.

> The baseline is going up.

I think that is debatable:

https://m.facebook.com/photo?fbid=721067186044954&wtsid=rdr_...

While I am not saying to ignore climate change, I do believe that the recent public narrative of a looming „climate catastrophe“ is certainly just to scare people into accepting all kinds of policy changes (and some of them with questionable usefulness).

I can't see your link.

Climate disaster is looming. Whatever the "public narrative" is beside the point, laws of physics don't care about that.

A screenshot of the original graph:

https://gcdnb.pbrd.co/images/OlbmTi1ZYEJS.jpg?o=1

> laws of physics don't care about that

As the figure tries to convey laws of nature do not matter if human action is able to offset their effects. In the last 100 years climate related deaths plummeted by 10x despite the warming trend we now know about.

And it’s not that surprising, if you take a step back shortly: It’s quintessentially human to withstand natural forces. That behavior have brought humans ever more far away from doom. Human beings have witnessed sea levels 130 meters lower 21000 years ago and have crossed the Bering street to populate North America. So climatic changes have basically been a catalyst to human development and they will remain so for the foreseeable future. Human made climate change is not great but it will certainly not bring doom over our civilization and certainly not over our planet (that has seen much worse if you look back farther into the past).

All this doom and gloom talk will only incite the worst in us.

You failed to add the two most important things on the subject about its impact worldwide

1) Certain regions, particularly those riding the equatorial line that also have wet seasons will experience (rather, are experiencing right now) extreme wet seasons with heavy flooding , for example in south america, such as Peru, Brazil and COlombia. The wet season causes an extreme cascading effect in those societies by the spike in cases of water-related (mosquito larvae) disease like dengue, cholera and malaria.

2) The same countries will experience drought in the normally quieter, "winter" season. That wrecks agricultural yield. Watch the price of bananas and similar water-intensive perennials , at your local supermarket early next year. For countries near major river flows (amazon in particular) that are not diversified in power sources and heavily dependant in hydro for power , they can get really in trouble and experience brownouts further damaging their GDP. This is rarer since most countries learn their lesson after the 1-brownout in a decade..but you never know.

Here in Northern California it means we've had a lot more rain, and it's been much cooler than usual as well as getting snow to a much lower level than usual (around 800 feet). Normally it would have already been 100 or so for a month already. however, today is first day to really hit 90 and we just had some rain last week. Honestly, I'm hoping it means we have a more mild & wet summer but that I'm not sure of. Anything other than the fires would be nice though.

The unfortunate side effect of El Niño is to further destabilize the marine environment off shore.

This isn’t all El Niño, we lost the sunflower starfish which preyed on urchins and kept them in check to a disease, but the warm surface waters are another bad situation on top of low kelp cover, urchins out of control, no predators for the urchins, etc. if we don’t have kelp forests off shore, the environment will be totally different and many species that depend on the kelp will disappear.

El Niño has been occurring for thousands of years. I think any contribution it has in destabilizing marine environments must be leveled with the fact that it's been doing so for a very long time, and yet those marine environments are still there. This tells me that it's not a primary cause.

The kelp forests that provide safe harbor for young fish, and much of the riches California’s fishing industry enjoys, can easily disappear. They already have in large swaths of the coast.

The sardine stocks collapsed. Salmon season is cancelled. Abalone will probably never be legally taken again in my lifetime in California.

El Nino is a natural phenomenon, but when the ecosystem is already on the edge because of climate change, ocean acidification, and overfishing it is enough that it might permanently change the ecosystem. I’m explaining that it’s already way out of whack because we killed most of the otters, decimated the sardine run, and then the starfish wasting disease took the last main urchin predator.

even here in southern CA (Anza) we had snow in March. though this article is telling us what next winter is going to be like I think...

No, that was the end of El Nina [1][2]. El Niño is still on its way [1][2][3].

[1] "Neutral" brought the atmospheric rivers: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/march-2023-enso-...

[2] Blue Nina, red nino: https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitorin...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRU1XYfjVF4

From Australia's BOM [1]

* Winter-Spring (June-November): Dryer than usual in eastern Australia, warmer than usual in southern Australia

* Summer-Autumn (December-May): Warmer than usual with average rainfall in eastern Australia, dryer conditions in Cape York and Tasmania, and wetter conditions in the southern part of Western Australia

[1] http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/#tabs=Pacific-Ocean

PS BOM agrees with NOAA that El Niño is coming http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/outlook/#tabs=ENSO-Outloo...

Inevitable, but disappointing of course - I had hoped we'd have something closer to a 5y cycle, as the previous couple of dry cycles were much longer than this most recent wet(ish) one.

I'm 150km inland, just north of Sydney AU latitude (150E, 33S).

The very averaged annual rainfall in our area is 600mm (about the same as London, about half of Sydney).

In 2021 we had 910mm, and 2022 we had 966mm. So far this year we've had 192mm - and given January is our wettest period, that's way under both long-term average and recent trend.

It's worth noting that the Americans here will likely experience wetter than normal conditions (region dependent). I'm just happy Australia might have a year without so much rain. Might be a bad fire season in the end of the year though.

Yep, with the amount of rain we've had in the SE coast there's a lot of fuel around waiting to dry out.

In Los Angeles, anyway, where as you may know, it "never rains", there's been what residents can only describe comparatively as "non-stop rain" since the new year.

Where it should be regularly mid-70s by this time of year, it's stayed around high-50s since January.

Preparing for my trip to London, I was planning for a wetter and colder climate than I'm accustomed to. It turns out it's actually nicer weather in London than in LA right now.

There's a theory that the Australian bush fires - absolutely breathtaking during end of 2019, early 2020 - helped extend this cycle:

"A multiyear tropical Pacific cooling response to recent Australian wildfires in CESM2"

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg1213

I have a feeling that after a summer of heat waves exacerbated by El Niño, more people will start taking climate change seriously.

I wouldn't bet that a summer of heat waves will result in such a change. Maybe after a winter of heatwaves...

More likely snow in the summer and failed harvests. Or a sudden shutdown of the thermohaline circulation. That could wake some people.

More people will buy air conditioners and will increase electricity demand, that will be satisfied by burning coal and gas

In India this summer was really cold compared to previous years. normally the temperatures hover around 45C but this time it barely went above 40C. And it even rained all over the place in summer. Not sure if this was some freak incident or is it related to ENSO(El nino southern oscillations) though. can't find enough information on the topic.

Since no one has commented on it yet: though I don't have data on hand, I wonder what is the correlation, if any, with possibly decreasing sulfur dioxide emissions (e.g. from diesel or fuel oil), due perhaps to purposeful emissions reduction regulations, as well as to overall reduction in logistics activity leading to lower emissions.

With the UK economic outlook not looking good this year, and high energy prices, a snowy and cold winter will be very bad news.

Care to explain to someone who just landed in UK and has no context on how el niño afects UK?

Does that mean I have to prepare for a winter from today till summer 24?

AIUI our winters are colder and drier, and prone to heavier snowfall.

Just google el niño Northern Europe

what does that mean for PNW? Dryer or more rainy season?

From what I've read, for any location and particularly coastal locations, it means less normal weather and more and more extreme weather. For example, I know some areas that are getting less and less frequent snow days, but more and more frequent snowstorms. So average snowfall stays relatively above average but occurs only on a few days. (I.e., snows like three days all winter but 8-20 inches each time.)

So I would guess the answer to

> Dryer or more rainy season?

is yes.

Summer has already arrived a whole month earlier than usual in the PNW.

We basically skipped spring here in BC. Late winter/early summer.

It was pretty rainy here in Seattle up until last week. So Juneuary is still on the table ;)

Before I saw your question, I asked the all-knowing (/s) ChatGPT, "What effect does El Niño have on weather in the Pacific Northwest?". Its answer:

> El Niño is a climate pattern that occurs when the sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become warmer than normal. This can have a significant impact on weather patterns worldwide, including the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.

> During an El Niño event, the Pacific Northwest typically experiences warmer and drier conditions than usual. This is because the warmer waters of the Pacific Ocean can cause changes in the atmospheric circulation patterns, leading to a shift in the jet stream. This, in turn, can result in a decrease in the frequency and intensity of storms that typically bring rain and snow to the region during the winter months.

> However, it's important to note that the specific impacts of El Niño on the Pacific Northwest can vary depending on a number of factors, including the strength and duration of the El Niño event and other climate patterns that may be occurring at the same time. Therefore, it's always a good idea to check local weather forecasts and stay informed about any potential impacts of El Niño on your area.

need to learn it in a context.

what's what was the chance of El Nino and How does it change over the past years?

It's been recorded since 1950: https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm

But, first evidence goes back 13,000 years [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Niño

Went surfing in the Pacific Ocean this morning and it was freezing. Theory was the current swell was swirling the deeper colder water. So many variations such as swell frequency/power could throw these results off.

May isn't a particularly warm month for pacific waters, at least here in British Columbia. I think it's probably still around 9°C? I'd still wear my 7mm wetsuit to dive right now.

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