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El Niño Brings
Wed Jan 15, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. Today, correspondent Robin White tells us why
this year's El Niño might be just a little different.
In July this year, climatologists confirmed a new El Niño forming in the Southern
Pacific. People started to brace for the coming winter. But, weatherman Warren Blier at the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Monterey says this El Niño is weak.
It may not bring a lot of bad weather and he's had to explain this to a disappointed press.
WB: What seems to catch people's attention is the word "El Niño." What comes to mind is
one of these dramatic El Niño years like we've had in the past.
But Blier says this year is different. The Pacific Ocean off Chile and Peru has only warmed up
1 or 2 degrees unlike the 5 degrees measured during 1998. That year brought torrential rain
to California and dry weather to the Pacific North West. But this El Niño may not be
strong enough to shift the jet stream. That's what changed the weather patterns in the big El
Niño's of the last two decades. But Blier says those big weather years are not the only
things called "El Niño."
WB: There's also been a lot of other El Niño events... and in those other El
Niño events, it might not have even been so apparent that they were occurring because
there wasn't necessarily any particular impact.
A weak El Niño was first recorded in 1740, and others have been seen as recently as
1931. For this year, forecasters predict a slightly wetter than average winter in the
Southwest, while the Midwest and Pacific Northwest could be a bit drier. As for the rest of
the country, EL Niño might just do nothing. For The Weather Notebook, I'm Robin
White.
The Weather Notebook is produced in New Hampshire at the Mount Washington Observatory, with
support from Subaru of America, and the National Science Foundation.
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