The planet gave us all a break from hurricane-dense El Niño
during Covid, but that may be coming to an end.
After three years of cooler temperatures in the tropical
Pacific, there are indications things are going to be heating up again. Enough
that even the New York Times reviewed it today.
For Hawai’i residents, hurricanes are the
top-of-consciousness impact of El Niño events. In El Niño years, they are more frequent, on average,
than in neutral or La Niña conditions.
Occasionally they are lots more frequent.
El Niño is a climate
phenomenon. A major feature of El Niño is that a massive pool of warm ocean
water migrates from the western to the eastern Pacific along the equator. It
happens every few years, and it is associated with global climate impacts:
fewer Atlantic tropical cyclones, more Central Pacific storms, drought in
Australia and India, more summer rainfall in California, coral bleaching events.
In Hawaii, on average, winters are drier in El Niño years.
La Niña is not quite
the opposite, but it is a cooler temperature phase in the Pacific, and it has
different global impacts.
The current prediction suggests that over the next few
months, we will shift from a cooler La Niña condition toward a neutral condition.
By summer, the forecast shows a more than 50% (and rising
after that) likelihood we will shift into an El Niño. That coincides with Hawai’i’s
hurricane season.
What does that mean for island residents? If you haven’t
made home repairs, haven’t figured out storm window protection, haven’t trimmed
that rotten mango limb hanging over the house, haven’t updated your home hurricane
kit, it’s probably a good time to get on it.
Here is FEMA’s suggested hurricane kit content list.
The Hawai’i Emergency Management Agency has its list of recommendations here.
Jan TenBruggencate
2023
No comments:
Post a Comment