An El Niño is forecast for the winter ahead, and we all know what that means. Or do we?

El Niño—that cyclical warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean—has long been associated with wet winters across much of the West. Which is always welcome news across the chronically water-short region. But in reality, whether El Niño actually delivers greater-than-normal precipitation is strictly a toss-up, says Jan Null, owner of Golden Gate Weather Services, a consultancy based in Saratoga, California.

ADVERTISEMENT
 
Thanks for watching!Visit Website

 
The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center tells us, in its most recent forecast of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, that there is as much as a 70 percent chance of El Niño conditions forming during the winter ahead. And it's likely to be a "weak" El Niño. But what does that mean? Elementally, it means the equatorial Pacific is expected to be warmer than normal, and this may alter weather events around the globe.

But it doesn't mean you should get your hopes up for a wet winter. Null has taken it upon himself to try to bring a dose of reality to the situation, via an exhaustive breakdown of precipitation results from past El Niño events. In an interview with Water Deeply, he explains why our expectations about this weather phenomenon are often wrong.

Read the full article.