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Trey English\u2019s 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<\/p>\n
As summer unfolds in the northern hemisphere, El Ni\u00f1o comes out to play.\n<\/p>\n
This periodic weather pattern originates in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean as waters grow warmer. \u00a0It\u2019s seemingly too far removed from the Florida peninsula to be consequential. But especially this year, nothing could be farther from the truth.\n<\/p>\n
For the first time in decades, El Ni\u00f1o\u00a0could become \u2014 not Superman \u2014 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.\n<\/p>\n
That it could have such an effect does not necessarily mean it will; that remains to be seen, the experts say.\n<\/p>\n
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 Ni\u00f1o and come to an understanding.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s basically a climate pattern where the temperatures in the Pacific are running hotter than normal,\u201d explained Lauren Hope, a meteorologist at ABC Gulf Coast News.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t sound like that would impact too much, but because oceans are so massive, it has a huge impact on global weather.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
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Lauren Hope, Meteorologost, ABC Gulf Coast News. -COURTESY PHOTO<\/p>\n
Which, in turn, has a huge impact on global living. \u201cIt has a domino effect, and it affects our Atlantic hurricane season.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
Hope\u2019s colleague at Gulf Coast News, Chief Meteorologist Allyson Rae, puts it this way: \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o is not like a storm. It\u2019s like a situation you\u2019re 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 Ni\u00f1o in winter, it can create a stormier tornado season, although we\u2019re not very tornadic \u2014 we might see an EF2 once every couple of years.\u201d An EF2 is classified as \u201cstrong,\u201d with wind speeds of 111 to 135 miles per hour.\n<\/p>\n
So, most people won\u2019t have to worry about it in winter here, but farmers are not most people. Crops such as citrus, that don\u2019t do well in freezes, are potentially at risk, they say. Again.\n<\/p>\n
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Allyson Rae, Chief Meteorologist, ABC Gulf Coast News. -COURTESY PHOTO<\/p>\n
\u201cI always worry about freezes, it\u2019s one of the weather phenomena that can hurt us,\u201d said Trey English, the current denizen of family farmers stretching back generations in east Lee County.\n<\/p>\n
Despite greening that eviscerated citrus groves, including his and his family members\u2019, he\u2019s 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\u2019re more successful at resisting greening, although not freezes).\n<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the extent El Ni\u00f1o can lead to a greater likelihood of freezes, it\u2019s a real concern,\u201d he said. \u201cThe trees are more at risk from damage when they are younger than when they \u2018re older, and these are young trees.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you see trees under nets\/bags (as his are), those give some cold protection.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
For most Floridians, though, \u201cthe biggest immediate impact in Florida is the amount of wind shear,\u201d Rae added \u2014 wind shear that could strongly inhibit hurricanes.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOther areas of the globe are impacted differently,\u201d she said: \u201ctoo much rain, or a drought, or an increase in the intensity of storms in the monsoon season.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
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 Ni\u00f1o.\n<\/p>\n
Although she\u2019s now in London at Imperial College, working at the Grantham Institute with one of the world\u2019s premier tropical cyclone scientists, Ralf Toumi, she offered detailed explanations of El Ni\u00f1o.\n<\/p>\n
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Professor Joanne Muller is a climate scientist at Florida Gulf Coast University. -COURTESY PHOTO<\/p>\n
What is El Ni\u00f1o?\n<\/p>\n
\u201cEl Ni\u00f1o 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 Ni\u00f1o 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.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
If this becomes a super El Ni\u00f1o, when could that happen, how would it work and how might it (with an emphasis on might) limit hurricane activity in Florida?\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it happens, we\u2019d expect it to peak in strength around November to January of 2026 into 2027, which is typically when El Ni\u00f1o events reach their maximum.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way it works to limit hurricanes is through wind shear. El Ni\u00f1o strengthens the upper-level winds over the Atlantic and Caribbean, and that shear tears developing storms apart before they can organize. We\u2019re 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.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I want to stress the \u2018might\u2019 in your question, because shear lowers the odds of storms forming, but it doesn\u2019t eliminate Florida\u2019s risk. While El Ni\u00f1o may lower the total storm count, it will not shut down the Atlantic hurricane season.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 1992 season is the textbook reminder. That was a weak El Ni\u00f1o year with very low overall activity, but it still produced Hurricane Andrew.\u201d That hurricane, a category 5 with winds of 157 miles per hour or higher, killed 65 people and created 27.3 billion in damages.\n<\/p>\n
Could there be more frequent severe storms in Florida, and how and why?\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt 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 Ni\u00f1o 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.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Could it create droughts that would lessen food supplies outside of Florida?\n<\/p>\n
\u201cEl Ni\u00f1o 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.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
How might El Ni\u00f1o affect Florida and Floridians in ways we haven\u2019t seen\u00a0before?\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThis part is genuinely uncertain, but I\u2019ll tell you what\u2019s different this time. The models are pointing toward one of the strongest El Ni\u00f1o events on record, potentially rivaling 1997-98.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re also layering this onto a baseline that\u2019s already warmer than it\u2019s ever been, with record ocean heat content. So even though El Ni\u00f1o 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.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s winter.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThere may also be more possibility for coastal flooding this winter,\u201d Muller says.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cEl Ni\u00f1o 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.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
What happens when the tide is high in coastal communities east or west?\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen one of those storms happens to coincide with a king tide, the combined effect can produce significant nuisance or moderate coastal flooding.\u201d\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trey English\u2019s 40-acre grove of young grapefruit trees will be as prepared as possible for freezes that might…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-354633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}