March 10, 2010

We have had some very strong storms this past winter – northeasters, blizzards, and heavy rains. For sometime now we have had at least one, sometimes two, strong storms every week. For the year March 11, 2009 to March 10, 2010 we are 23.8” of precipitation above the historical yearly average. So far, 2010 has been a continuation of this wet, stormy trend.

Is it climate change? I don’t know…but as it is for most arguments, the same supporting data can be interpreted and presented with opposite views. I don’t think that there will ever be a total consensus, for no mater what happens to the climate, somewhere on this earth there will be a desert and somewhere else a glacier and both will be a pulpit.

What is agreed upon is that a very strong “el Nino” formed in the Pacific late last year, and it has yet to weaken. An El Nino is a term used to describe a rise of ocean temperatures in the tropical pacific. Typically, an El Nino brings rain and strong storms to the west coast, which then pushes into the Gulf States. In the past months, the jet stream has dipped south, picking up this energy and moisture, sweeping it up through the mid- Atlantic where it forms into low pressure systems. The recent results have been drenching rains and blizzards.

NOAA scientists are thinking that the “el Nino” will persist another month or two at least, and it seems that we may be stuck in a rainy, if not stormy, pattern for some time. Scientists also caution that there are many other variables that affect the Mid- Atlantic weather pattern, and that we can not assign every raindrop, wind gust, or snowflake to the el Nino phenomenon that is occurring many thousand miles away. But it does have an effect, and our area continues to feel it.