Signs of El Niño brewing
| • | Hurricane fund may take hit |
| • | Graphic: El Niño returns, with consequencs for Hawai'i |
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
El Niño appears to be on its way, with a hot, dry summer and fall ahead and a heightened risk of winter hurricanes, according to University of Hawai'i scientists.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
During the last two weeks there has been a rapid increase in Pacific water temperatures off the coast of Peru and Ecuador in South America and a continuing warming of central Pacific waters — definite signs of the weather pattern named after the Christ child for its Christmas appearance.
University of Hawai'i oceanography professor Roger Lukas has spent two decades studying El Niño. He said recent evidence includes rising ocean temperatures.
The evidence of a new El Niño has been building for some time.
"In the last few weeks, warming areas in the eastern Pacific popped up," said UH oceanography professor Roger Lukas, who has spent two decades studying El Niño conditions.
Typically, El Niño brings cloudless skies and hot, dry days.
"It's great weather for tourists," Lukas said.
But it also increases the likelihood of a winter drought, with accompanying concerns about conserving water and heightened energy demand for air conditioning.
"We've been impacted already," Lukas said. "We've had a rainier-than-average winter because of warming (of ocean surface temperatures) by the dateline, and no trade winds in spring, when we should have.
"And we could look at record highs for September and October."
During El Niño years, warmer oceans and unusual wind patterns raise concerns about more tropical cyclones forming in the central Pacific, along with an increase in fall and winter storms.
Hawai'i was hit by hurricanes in El Niño years 1982 and 1992. It was also the El Niño year 1957 that brought record gusts of about 60 mph at Honolulu International Airport, said associate professor Thomas Schroeder, director of the Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research.
Conversely, El Niño brings fewer summer and fall tornadoes to the Mainland.
But it tends to bring winter storms to Southern California; a warmer, drier winter to the Pacific Northwest; and a wetter winter to the Southeast.
The weather picture is further complicated by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which is in a cool phase and could moderate and shorten El Niño conditions.
This repetitive pattern lasts 10 or more years, and overlaps El Niño near the North Pacific.
It involves an "east-west see-saw of surface temperature and wind in the North Pacific," Lukas said.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
