By Clint Thompson
El Niño flexed its muscle during the winter and early spring. Cold, wet conditions have been prevalent across the Southeast. But how much longer will it last and what exactly are neutral conditions that weather experts project El Niño to transition into?
Pam Knox, University of Georgia (UGA) Extension agricultural climatologist, provides an answer.
“Think of it like a see-saw. It swings back and forth. When it’s flat, then that’s what you call neutral conditions, so it’s not leaning one way or the other,” Knox said. “It’s tied specifically to the ocean temperature in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which in effect, stretches around the globe. Right now, we have been in the situation where the water there has been warmer than usual. It’s considered to be a really strong El Niño. But it has rapidly decayed in the last month.
“I think the warm water is going away, and it’s now becoming much closer to the long-term average. The effects on the atmosphere that’s above it is also changing. They’re starting to say they’re seeing a relatively rapid decrease in those warm ocean temperatures going back towards normal. Most of the models suggest that within a month or two that we’re going to start to swing the other way and that ocean temperature is going to start to get colder than the long-term average.”
Knox stated in her Climate and Agriculture blog that the expected transition from El Niño to neutral conditions will likely occur by April to June. It will then swing to La Nina by June to August.
“There’s usually a lag because it takes a while for the atmosphere to respond. What we expect to see is that the El Niño conditions will probably continue to occur for the next couple of months. We can expect to see more periods of rain interspersed with drier conditions,” Knox said.