An El Niño winter is headed for the U.S. this year, and experts hope it could alleviate drought conditions that have become all too common because of climate change.
The El Niño winter will likely bring drier conditions for the North and wetter conditions for the South. This could mean good things for drought-stricken states like Louisiana, which is experiencing an exceptional drought in over 50 percent of the state, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. A wet winter is also expected in parts of Tennessee, which is also experiencing extreme drought conditions.
A warmer winter and extra precipitation are also expected for parts of the central U.S., which could be good news for states experiencing drought, such as Kansas and Missouri. Nearly 40 percent of Kansas is in a severe drought, with most of the rest of the state seeing some form of drought.
"An El Niño event favors wetter winters across the south and the southwestern United States and drier and warmer winters in the Pacific Northwest," Aaron Levine, a research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean and Ecosystem Studies at the University of Washington told Newsweek.
"Looking at some more detailed maps on winter precipitation, it does appear that Kansas and Missouri have decent chances of more precipitation than normal during this upcoming winter," he said. "More generally speaking, with much of the south and southwest experiencing drought conditions, all have an increased likelihood of greater than average precipitation this winter."
El Niño, the warmer counterpart to La Niña, is generated by a warm ocean surface. During an El Niño winter, the Pacific jet stream moves south and spreads further east.
"The large rearrangement of ocean heat during El Niño nudges atmospheric wind patterns out of kilter so some dry regions tend to receive more rainfall than usual," Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the U.K.'s University of Reading, told Newsweek.
However, while El Niño may provide hope for drought-stricken states, Allan said the exact effects will be hard to predict.
"The exact effects on drought and deluge also depend on the fickle nature of our weather, but the warmer climate we experience today means that when and where unusually wet or dry conditions occur, the severity of these conditions will be even worse," he said.
As well as southwestern North America, Allen said other dry places, like southwestern Europe and East Africa, will likely see additional rainfall.
A wet winter can be also expected from the southern parts of California all the way to the Carolinas.
Over a year ago, California was suffering from severe drought. But from December 2022 to early March 2023, the state saw a huge amount of heavy rainfall as well as winter storms. Last winter was not an El Niño one, meaning this deluge of rain was an anomaly for the usually dry state, but it almost completely relieved the state of its drought status.
If this El Niño winter brings the same amount of rainfall to the remaining drought-stricken states, it could bring relief similar to what we have seen in California over the past year. Still, sudden rainfall can cause severe disruptions, especially if an area has not seen large amounts for a long time.
In the past, El Niño has dramatically reduced the snowfall in Northern states that typically see very cold winters. During particularly strong El Niño years, snowfall in Spokane, Washington, was 18 inches less than usual, while Chicago has previously seen a foot less in snowfall.
An El Niño year can bring much warmer and drier conditions to other areas of the globe, which could cause more severe drought conditions.
"[During El Niño] the Amazon region can be warmer and much drier, which was the case as the last big El Niño developed in 2015, and this could exacerbate existing drought conditions," Allan told Newsweek in October.
"However, the fickle nature of weather patterns means that the exact locations and details of extremes will be difficult to pin down until a week or so before they develop," he said. "Importantly, the warmer climate due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions will increase the severity of hot, wet and dry extremes, where and when they occur."
Update 11/17/23, 04:08 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to include a quote from Aaron Levine.
About the writer
Robyn White is a Newsweek Nature Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on wildlife, science and the ... Read more
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