Trey English’s 40-acre grove of young grapefruit trees will be as prepared as possible for freezes that might result from the effects of El Nino. -ROGER WILLIAMS / FLORIDA WEEKLY

As summer unfolds in the northern hemisphere, El Niño comes out to play.

This periodic weather pattern originates in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean as waters grow warmer.  It’s seemingly too far removed from the Florida peninsula to be consequential. But especially this year, nothing could be farther from the truth.

For the first time in decades, El Niño could become — not Superman — a super boy of sorts whose far-reaching influence could affect weather in the Sunshine State and a lot of other even more distant places right through the rest of summer and the following winter.

That it could have such an effect does not necessarily mean it will; that remains to be seen, the experts say.

Florida Weekly sought an explanation of what will happen and what might happen through the current hurricane season and next winter from experts who have long studied El Niño and come to an understanding.

“It’s basically a climate pattern where the temperatures in the Pacific are running hotter than normal,” explained Lauren Hope, a meteorologist at ABC Gulf Coast News.

“It doesn’t sound like that would impact too much, but because oceans are so massive, it has a huge impact on global weather.”

Lauren Hope, Meteorologost, ABC Gulf Coast News. -COURTESY PHOTO

Which, in turn, has a huge impact on global living. “It has a domino effect, and it affects our Atlantic hurricane season.”

At first glance, this could be cause for a jubilation of sorts among Floridians, because the news is (for lack of a better term) good.

Hope’s colleague at Gulf Coast News, Chief Meteorologist Allyson Rae, puts it this way: “El Niño is not like a storm. It’s like a situation you’re in, caused by warm waters off the equatorial Pacific. It sets the stage for a greater likelihood of a wetter, cooler winter. If we still have El Niño in winter, it can create a stormier tornado season, although we’re not very tornadic — we might see an EF2 once every couple of years.” An EF2 is classified as “strong,” with wind speeds of 111 to 135 miles per hour.

So, most people won’t have to worry about it in winter here, but farmers are not most people. Crops such as citrus, that don’t do well in freezes, are potentially at risk, they say. Again.

Allyson Rae, Chief Meteorologist, ABC Gulf Coast News. -COURTESY PHOTO

“I always worry about freezes, it’s one of the weather phenomena that can hurt us,” said Trey English, the current denizen of family farmers stretching back generations in east Lee County.

Despite greening that eviscerated citrus groves, including his and his family members’, he’s come back with new methods and strategies. He completely cleared 40 acres, reworked the soil, and replanted with grapefruit trees starting about two years ago (because they’re more successful at resisting greening, although not freezes).

“To the extent El Niño can lead to a greater likelihood of freezes, it’s a real concern,” he said. “The trees are more at risk from damage when they are younger than when they ‘re older, and these are young trees.

“When you see trees under nets/bags (as his are), those give some cold protection.”

For most Floridians, though, “the biggest immediate impact in Florida is the amount of wind shear,” Rae added — wind shear that could strongly inhibit hurricanes.

“Other areas of the globe are impacted differently,” she said: “too much rain, or a drought, or an increase in the intensity of storms in the monsoon season.”

Joanne Muller, Ph.D., a professor and Whitaker Institute Eminent Scholar at Florida Gulf Coast University, has spent much of her professional life studying weather phenomena, including El Niño.

Although she’s now in London at Imperial College, working at the Grantham Institute with one of the world’s premier tropical cyclone scientists, Ralf Toumi, she offered detailed explanations of El Niño.

Professor Joanne Muller is a climate scientist at Florida Gulf Coast University. -COURTESY PHOTO

What is El Niño?

“El Niño is basically a periodic warming of the surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, near the equator. It happens every few years as part of a natural cycle called ENSO, which stands for El Niño Southern Oscillation. When that ocean warming happens, it changes the wind patterns and atmospheric circulation, and those changes ripple out and affect weather patterns across the whole globe, including hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin, among other things.”

If this becomes a super El Niño, when could that happen, how would it work and how might it (with an emphasis on might) limit hurricane activity in Florida?

“If it happens, we’d expect it to peak in strength around November to January of 2026 into 2027, which is typically when El Niño events reach their maximum.

“The way it works to limit hurricanes is through wind shear. El Niño strengthens the upper-level winds over the Atlantic and Caribbean, and that shear tears developing storms apart before they can organize. We’re actually already seeing that signature play out where the Atlantic has had very low tropical activity since the start of season. Seasonal forecasters have dropped their counts.

“But I want to stress the ‘might’ in your question, because shear lowers the odds of storms forming, but it doesn’t eliminate Florida’s risk. While El Niño may lower the total storm count, it will not shut down the Atlantic hurricane season.

“The 1992 season is the textbook reminder. That was a weak El Niño year with very low overall activity, but it still produced Hurricane Andrew.” That hurricane, a category 5 with winds of 157 miles per hour or higher, killed 65 people and created 27.3 billion in damages.

Could there be more frequent severe storms in Florida, and how and why?

“It really depends on which season you mean. During hurricane season, activity is suppressed for the reasons I just described. But once we get into winter, it actually flips. El Niño tends to push the jet stream south over Florida, and that can mean more frequent winter storms, heavier rain, and a higher chance of severe thunderstorms or even tornadoes along the Gulf Coast during the cooler months. El Nino winters in Florida tend to be wetter.”

Could it create droughts that would lessen food supplies outside of Florida?

“El Niño tends to bring drought to places like Southeast Asia, Australia, and parts of South America and southern Africa. Those are regions tied to crops like rice, sugar, and cocoa.”

How might El Niño affect Florida and Floridians in ways we haven’t seen before?

“This part is genuinely uncertain, but I’ll tell you what’s different this time. The models are pointing toward one of the strongest El Niño events on record, potentially rivaling 1997-98.

“We’re also layering this onto a baseline that’s already warmer than it’s ever been, with record ocean heat content. So even though El Niño typically means fewer hurricanes for Florida, the storms that do form are forming in record-warm Gulf and Atlantic waters, which could mean faster intensification windows.”

Then there’s winter.

“There may also be more possibility for coastal flooding this winter,” Muller says.

“El Niño winters bring a more active, southward-shifted storm track over Florida, meaning more frequent low-pressure systems passing through. Lower atmospheric pressure itself allows sea level to rise locally, and the stronger onshore winds associated with those storms push additional water toward the coast.”

What happens when the tide is high in coastal communities east or west?

“When one of those storms happens to coincide with a king tide, the combined effect can produce significant nuisance or moderate coastal flooding.”