El Niño could mean severe weather

It’s no secret the weather has been a little odd lately to say the least. And it’s all due to a weather phenomenon.

We are learning that this phenomenon, El Niño, has significant effects on our weather.

I thought it might be interesting to try and give our viewers an idea of how it might affect our weather during the next several months.

Jan. 24, 1997: for the people around 5 Points East in Tuscaloosa, the world changes. An F-2 tornado bulldozes its way across 10 miles of Tuscaloosa county, killing one and injuring several others. 

A Food World store was the site of some of the worst damage, with shopping carts and cars tossed around like toothpicks across the parking lot.  One car was actually picked up and tossed through the roof, landing in the cookie aisle! 

Ok, so that was one devastating tornado, but we started off talking about El Niño. Is there a connection? 

Well as it turns out, the warming of the Pacific Ocean current that is El Niño has a profound effect on that fast moving ribbon of air above us: the jet stream. It makes it stronger, and shifts it further south. And like now, 1997 was an El Niño year.

“First of all, the jet stream brings more systems from the Pacific across Alabama, so you have more thunderstorms to begin with, so you naturally increase the likelihood of severe weather,” said Jim Stekovich of the National Weather Service.

But it’s more than that. That same jet stream also changes the way the wind behaves, and promotes wind shear.

“The jet stream itself, and the higher winds when you go higher in the atmosphere helps the storms start spinning or turning. What we have found during El Niño events is not higher frequency of severe weather, but more intense severe weather outbreaks,” Stekovich said.

So as we go through the autumn and winter months, El Niño could mean a higher than average chance of a significant tornado outbreak.

And El Niño’s effect on our weather may not stop there. I am sure you’ve noticed it’s been quite wet around here of late.  Well because of that strong southern jet stream, there may be plenty more of that to come.

“We are already close to 60 inches of rain here in Birmingham, and we are expecting at least another 10 inches or so for the remaining couple of months,” Stekovich said.

Another 10 inches would bring us close to 70 inches for the year!  Remember all those stories a year ago about the drought? That story has simply washed away.