The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said last week that the little devil El Nino is back, warming up the waters in the equatorial Pacific region and possibly setting the stage for a weaker hurricane season but also an increase in the number of storms next winter along the East Coast.

Typical El Nino impacts on the United States include the following, according ot NOAA:

Scientists at NOAA said that ocean surface temperatures warmed 2 degrees Celsius (4 F) in the eastern equatorial Pacific near the South American coast in February. The warming has been accompanied by an increase in rainfall over that region. The trend is an additional sign that the Pacific Ocean is heading toward an El Nino condition, said NOAA Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher.

“It’s still too early to determine the potential strength of this El Nino or exactly what weather conditions it will bring to the United States, but it is likely these warming conditions in the tropical Pacific will continue until early 2003,” he said.

The forecast has many energy market forecasters scrambling to size up the potential impact. But Weather Services International (WSI) said there is very little chance that El Nino will alter weather patterns this summer. The most likely scenario shows an impact late in the fall and in the winter.

“The El Nino watch they put out is relevant, but it’s not relevant for the summer,” said WSI spokesman Jeff Shorter. “There’s typically anywhere from a two- to five-month lag between the time something develops in the equatorial Pacific and the time it impacts our weather up here. It’s important but the timing of the release of the information scared a lot of people. People thought, ‘Oh my god, it’s here; what’s it going to do this summer?'”

Shorter said current weather data indicate that probably in the next two or three months an El Nino, or a warming of equatorial waters in the Pacific, is going to occur. “There’s actually pretty high confidence in that,” he said. “We don’t know how big it’s going to be. We’re sure it’s not going to be as big as the last one. Two to three months out puts it in the May-June timeframe, but the initial impacts of that won’t be seen until the fall or winter. The soonest it could hit us would be September or October.”

El Nino is famous for drowning California with lots and lots of rain, said Shorter. “But what it also does — and the reason California gets so much rain — is bring the rain patterns down from the Pacific Northwest. You end up with not much rain in the Pacific Northwest where a lot of the hydropower comes from.” But he noted once again that the impact on hydro wouldn’t be felt until after the summer peak of power demand.

WSI’s near-term forecast (for April, May and June) calls for cooler than normal temperatures in the Pacific region and the Pacific Northwest. All states east of California, Oregon and Washington are expected to experience above normal temperatures. April is expected to bring below normal temperatures for most of the West and New England, and substantially above normal temperatures across the entire Southeast and Texas. In May and June, the West Coast is expected to remain below normal, while everything east of there moves to above normal with significantly above normal temperatures in the central Plains states, New England and the Mid-Atlantic.

The latest 30- and 90-day outlooks released last Thursday by the National Weather Service paint a somewhat different picture, however. NWS expects above normal temperatures across much of the West and through parts of the Southeast through early summer. In fact, the April through June outlook calls for above-normal temperatures across a 12-state area extending from Washington state to Louisiana. Included in this area are the gas-reliant states of California, Arizona and Texas.

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