[pct-l] El Nino News - NASA Data

[kborski@xxxxxxxxx (Karen Borski)]

NASA has partnered up with NOAA to continue a study of
El Nino wind and weather patterns that they started in
the '97/98 season.  I was watching NASA TV today, and
they finally have a full set of data to compare this
El Nino with the last one.

This one is intrinsically different.  Instead of
having west->east winds pushing the warm temperature
swell against the western edge of South America, this
year's El Nino has seen east->west winds pushing the
warm ocean waters into the middle of the Pacific.
This offsets where the "extra" precipitation falls,
meaning that there is almost a complete opposite type
of effect happening this time around.

The data explains why there have been more warm rains
in southern CA, but less overall precipitation, both
in the west and east US.

Good news for potential PCT (and AT) thru-hikers.  Bad
news for those who need the snow.  Interesting,
nonetheless.  It was nice to actually see the data, so
I thought that I'd pass this along

Nocona

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