{"id":108758,"date":"2015-10-19T21:07:17","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T03:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/el-nino-likely-to-break-state-drought\/"},"modified":"2015-10-19T21:07:17","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T03:07:17","slug":"el-nino-likely-to-break-state-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/el-nino-likely-to-break-state-drought\/","title":{"rendered":"El Ni\u00f1o likely to break state drought"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"In
In a comparison of the El Ni\u00f1os of 1997, left, and 2015, red indicates where sea levels are higher than normal.<\/span>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Four Corners is still trending toward a wetter, cooler winter thanks to a strong El Ni\u00f1o, reports the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

The 2015-16 winter forecast from December to February shows a 33 to 40 percent chance that the Four Corners will be wetter than normal. New Mexico and Texas have a 50 percent probability of a wetter-than-normal winter.<\/p>\n

But NWS forecaster Joe Ramey cautions that the strong El Ni\u00f1o does not guarantee an above-average winter for the Dolores and San Miguel basins.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shifts the Pacific jet stream south, which favors more of the Southern states,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Four Corners area is on the northern boundary of the El Ni\u00f1o impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, the last strong El Ni\u00f1o was the winter of 1997-1998, which produced below-average snowpack for the Dolores Basin.<\/p>\n

El Ni\u00f1os are characterized by a warming of the Equatorial Pacific, and the current increase of 36.5 degrees fahrenheit (2.5 Celsius) is considered strong. Since 1950, there have been 21 El Ni\u00f1os, with six of them rated as strong, Ramey said.<\/p>\n

The flip side of El Ni\u00f1o is that is spells drier conditions for the Northwest, which had record low snowpack last winter.<\/p>\n

Ramey added that the current west-to-east weather patterns indicates that El Ni\u00f1o has kicked in, bringing additional moisture to the Southwest because of the southern shift in the jet stream.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe monsoons that bring up moisture from the tropical south have ended,\u201d Ramey said. \u201cThese recent storms are coming from the west, which coincides with the El Ni\u00f1o signal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Current weather corresponds to the trend as well, said Jim Andrus, a local weather watcher for the NWS.<\/p>\n

October moisture 112 percent of normal for Cortez. And year-to-date moisture for the Cortez area is 137 percent of normal at 14.9 inches of precipitation.<\/p>\n

According to the NWS, the 30-day precipitation outlook is above normal for Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. The 90-day forecast is slated for normal to above normal precipitation for those same areas.<\/p>\n

Drought status<\/p>\n

The U.S. drought outlook shows some improvement, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Relief is likely in central and southern Californian by the end of January, but an end to the drought there is not expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it is good news that drought improvement is predicted for California, one season of above-average rain and snow is unlikely to remove four years of drought,\u201d said Mike Halpert, deputy director for NOAA\u2019s Climate Prediction Center. \u201cCalifornia would need close to twice its normal rainfall to get out of drought and that\u2019s unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, drought removal is likely across large parts of the Southwest. The NOAA drought prediction map released Oct. 15, shows Colorado breaking free of drought conditions for 2016. Northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona, are labeled \u201cdrought removal likely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drought is expected to persist in the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies because of the El Ni\u00f1o weather pattern that shifts the Pacific jet stream south carrying storms with it.<\/p>\n

Meteorologists predict the ongoing El Ni\u00f1o event will peak in late autumn and diminish in magnitude through the late winter and spring.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

weather pattern expected to peak in late fall, then taper off<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,13,1163],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-108758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-weather-science"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108758"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=108758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}