San Diego braces for a warmer, drier pattern as meteorologist Alex Tardy predicts strengthening El Niño conditions, following a winter of expected storms.
SAN DIEGO — Meteorologists say San Diego may be in for a warmer, drier pattern in the coming months, even as the region’s recent winter delivered close to normal rainfall.
Back in September, Meteorologist Alex Tardy of the forecasting company Weather Echo anticipated a season marked by fewer, but stronger, storms separated by long dry stretches. “You’re still going to see big wet storms, but they’re going to be fewer farther between each other, so they’re going to have long dry stretches mixed in, and that’s what’s going to result in your milder warmer winter and drier conditions,” he said at the time.
Six months later, that outlook largely held, with San Diego reaching about its normal precipitation despite the prolonged heat wave that recently ended. “Here we are sitting at normal precipitation in San Diego, so we achieved it by basically having three storms — one in mid-November, one from Christmas to New Year’s Day and then another one in mid-February,” Tardy said.
The La Niña pattern that shaped that winter is now fading, and attention is turning to a developing El Niño in the Pacific Ocean. Tardy cautions against dramatic online claims. “I have not seen any projections that indicate mega, off the charts, or a Godzilla — any of that, in my opinion, is all social media hype,” he said.
Tardy, who bases his forecasts on data-driven analysis, expects El Niño conditions to strengthen through summer and into fall. He emphasizes that El Niño is not a single storm or weather system, but a large-scale ocean pattern along the equator. “It’s a very normal way for the Earth and the ocean to relieve itself — to either cool the ocean in the tropics or warm the ocean in the tropics after it’s been cool, like what we just experienced,” he said.
As spring begins, forecast models point to above-average temperatures across the region. After the extreme winter conditions that recently ended, Tardy says residents should prepare for a hot season ahead. “A normal summer typically will mean warmer-than-normal conditions, more intense heat waves, and maybe even more severe heat waves as we get into early to mid-summer,” he said.