{"id":120218,"date":"2014-05-15T21:11:19","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T03:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/drought-relief-may-be-on-the-way\/"},"modified":"2014-05-15T21:11:19","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T03:11:19","slug":"drought-relief-may-be-on-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/drought-relief-may-be-on-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Drought relief may be on the way"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"NOAA
NOAA Graphic<br><br>A recently released climate prediction shows Western states (in green) receiving above normal precipitation this summer.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The El Ni\u00f1o Southern Oscillation phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific Ocean is predicted to form this summer, potentially bringing moisture to the area.<\/p>\n

El Ni\u00f1o forms when the equatorial ocean waters off of South America heat up by 0.5 degree centigrade, or more, over a three-month period, explained Joe Ramey a forecaster and climatologist with the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cModeling and our best forecasts show it is on the way,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is not a perfect forecast, but El Ni\u00f1o is loosely correlated to increased moisture for the Four Corners area.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ocean temperature fluctuations aren\u2019t fully understood, but the heating is linked to a jet stream that dips farther south, bringing more precipitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can translate to a better monsoon season and increases snowstorms and snowpack,\u201d Ramey said. \u201cThis year, the San Juans kind of got cheated with snowpack, so hopefully that will change this winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opposite happens when the ocean cools by a 0.5 centigrade \u2013 La Ni\u00f1a. The effect for North America in that case is the jet stream is pushed north, pulling storms away from the Southwest during winter.<\/p>\n

A climate prediction from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows above-normal precipitation for the West this summer.<\/p>\n

There have been 16 El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s since 1950. They increase probability for moisture in southern Colorado, but it doesn\u2019t always materialize, Ramey said.<\/p>\n

Snowpack for the Dolores basin was 83 percent of normal this winter.<\/p>\n

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

Graphic<br><br>A recently released climate prediction shows Western states (in green) receiving above normal precipitation this summer.du1-i-syn The El Ni\u00f1o Southern Oscillation phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific Ocean is predicted to form this summer, potentially bringing moisture to the area. El Ni\u00f1o forms when the equatorial ocean waters off of South America heat up by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":120219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-120218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120218","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=120218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120218"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=120218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}