Winter Storm Jonas , theincredibly sinewy snowstormsurging towards the East Coast right now , is gain in size and strength . We ’re also right in the heart of the most powerful El Niño we ’ve see yet . Is El Niño the reason this tempest is so savage ?
https://gizmodo.com/most-powerful-blizzard-in-years-may-dump-two-feet-of-sn-1754108583
“ It really does set up the scope for this tempest to develop and track the way it is trailing , ” Louis Uccellini film director of NOAA ’s National Weather enjoin us this good afternoon of the function El Niño may have played . Of of course , pegging any storm just to El Niño is pretty out of the question . Still , strong El Niño winter tend to be warmer , wetter , and stormier than usual and considering howclosely 2015 - 2016 has been mirroring 1997 - 98so far , it ’s an specially interesting El Niño wintertime to calculate back on .
Top prototype : GIF map made using NOAA ’s water vapour mapping tool ; Bottom map : Map of heavier precipitation orbit during strong El Niño eld
Mike Halpert , the lieutenant director of NOAA ’s Climate Prediction Center , was quick to point out to Gizmodo that a big conflict between this oncoming storm and 1998 ’s winter El Niño was that the storms 18 years ago were actually exceptionally light on snow .
“ That winter is one of only two winters in over 50 years that saw less than one inch of snow free fall in Washington DC , ” he tell us . “ The overall formula privilege above - normal temperature for the winter in the Northeast , but you’re able to sure as shooting get a snowstorm and still have monthly and seasonal temperature be above normal . ”
So does that mean that El Niño wo n’t be involved in this weekend ’s weather ? Not quite . The warm temperatures that are predicted in many portion may play a big role in what we do ( or do n’t ) end up check this weekend .
What we saw in 1998 was a double whammy : an outstandingly warm winter ( much like this one ) anda record - shatter yearin terms of wintertime hurriedness — including one of the worst ice tempest in memory board in January , stretching all along the East Coast , with heavy flooding a little further S . North Carolina got 16 inches of freezing rain in a undivided day .
Image : Powerlines in an ice storm , NOAA/ NWS
What does that tell us about this weekend ? If you look at prognosis , specially in the DC and Baltimore domain , prevision have ranged from between 20 to 30 inch . But the further out you move from that neighborhood , figuring out just what ’s go to fall out this weekend , and what warmer temperatures will have to do with it ( if anything ) , is a bit less clear .
In the National Weather Service ’s forecasts for New York yesterday , they admitted that they were n’t really certain what — whether rain , snow , or some mixture therefrom — would end up falling from the sky . As of this morning , they ’ve update the forecast to say that they believe the storm will at least start out as snow , but as the daytime go away on , it could warm up enough that it switches to sleet or even rain . Meanwhile , further south in Kentucky and North Carolina , they ’re look at with child ice storms prompt into the arena .
Of course , the forecasting are still fluctuating . But what we ’ve seen of what go on when warmer temperatures and warm storms collide in 1998 suggests that whatever we end up seeing this weekend will be intense .
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