LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB+WAVE) —

You have probably seen the headlines all over the place about this “Super El Nino” developing in the Northern Hemisphere. Many videos (from people with no science background) will state how this will have “catastrophic” global impacts.

Let’s talk about what’s actually happening without the hype you’ll see on Tiktok and what exactly it could mean for our area here in Kentucky & Indiana.

What is a “Super” El Nino?

First, what is an El Nino? An El Nino is a naturally occurring climate pattern dictated by the warming of the ocean temperatures in the central and eastern portions of the Pacific Ocean. An El Nino occurs when those warm ocean temperatures push toward the Americas.

El Nino’s (and La Nina’s) can and do have global impacts, but especially here in North America. Those impacts depend on the strength of the El Nino or La Nina. There is weak, moderate, strong, and very strong. This year’s El Nino is a very strong one, described as the ocean temperature reaching 2 degrees Celsius above the average. This year’s very strong El Nino is forecasted to climb as high as around 3-4C above normal. That’s what makes this one “super”. The previous highest one we saw was back in 2016 when we peaked around 2.75C.

What does a “Super” El Nino mean for OUR area?

Before we get into the specifics, it’s important to remember that a “very strong El Nino” has only occurred three other times in tracked history; those years being 1983, 1998, and 2016. So, what we will look at to determine what this could mean for us is called “ensemble” data. This will take those years we previously had a “very strong El Nino” and use them to show what trends usually pop up when we have those similar conditions. Since there is only three years where it has happened, the data set is not very large, so we only have a few examples to take from. In some cases, we will also take the “Strong” El Nino years into account to give us more data to compare to.

Fall Temperatures

Very Strong El Nino

When we look at the Fall (Sept-Nov) for very strong El Nino’s, you’ll see that for our area, there isn’t much of an obvious trend. Kentucky slightly leans toward cooler than normal temperatures, but not by much. This would suggest more normal to maybe slightly below-normal temperatures this Fall. The more obvious extreme trends are in the Southwest where it’s much below normal and the midweek and plains that are much above normal.

Fall Precipitation

Very Strong El Nino

Now let’s look at the Fall (Sept-Nov) for very strong El Nino’s for precipitation. This time it is a little more conclusive for our area. In this map, it shows most of our area, especially in Indiana, has experienced drier-than-normal conditions. The values are not maxed out, but there is a little more tell there than there was for temperatures.

Winter Temperatures

For winter, since we only have three previous years of very strong El Nino’s to look at, we will also add in “strong” El Nino’s in there so we have more data to compare this year to.

Very Strong El Nino (Dec-Feb)

Let’s focus on wintertime now. For a “very strong” El Nino, the Winter (Dec-Feb) tends to lean slightly warmer than normal for our area. Much like the Fall, it’s not a slam dunk and the values are not large here, but there is a slight trend from those previous three years. When you look more up to the mid-west and into the Northern Plains, that is where the warmer than normal temperatures are most likely and have higher impact.

Strong El Nino (Dec-Feb)

Now let’s add in all “strong” El Nino years with the “very strong” ones to give us more data to compare to. The warmer than normal trend still is obvious in the mid-west and plains, but for our area it’s more near-average. There is also more cooler-than-normal areas popping up along the southern coast and into the southwest US.

Now, what about for just January and February, since that’s when most of our snow actually falls?

Very Strong El Nino (Jan-Feb)

The consensus here is similar to the full slate of winter months including December, with warmer than normal being a slight in our area, mainly in Indiana, but with a higher probability and impact in the Northern Plains.

Winter Precipitation

Very Strong El Nino (Dec-Feb)

For precipitation for the entire winter (Dec-Feb) just using the “very strong” El Nino years, you can see that there isn’t much of a trend necessarily for our area. There is some slight below-normal precipitation, but it’s not as apparent as the above-normal trends in California and in the Southeast.

Strong El Nino (Dec-Feb)

Let’s do the same thing we did earlier and add in the “strong” El Nino years as well to have more data to compare to. You’ll see that it doesn’t change much. The same trends are evident for all the strong and very strong El Nino years for our area. No major trend/impact one way or the other, just a slight trend toward drier than normal.

How could the Super El Nino affect our snow?

We now know that there isn’t a huge trend in either direction in very strong El Nino winters for either temperature or precipitation. There’s definitely no extremes. Let’s see what kind of snowfall we had in the previous three years we had a very strong El Nino.

You’ll see that we are kind of all over the place. In the first very strong El Nino recorded in the 1982-83 year, we only had 5.1″ of snow the entire season. However, during the 97-98 very strong El Nino, we had the memorable February 98′ snow that added our total season to 21.2″. The most recent very strong El Nino about 10 years ago was in between the previous two. The only real trend you’ll see is that all three instances had little December snowfall.

How could the Super El Nino affect severe season?

Something interesting that we found diving into the data was in regards to tornadoes in the spring following the very strong El Nino years. What we found is that there were only three confirmed tornadoes in our viewing area over that entire three year span. Crazy right?!

The only confirmed tornadoes we had in the previous very strong El Nino years were an F3 in Adair County on April 16th, 1998, an F2 in Adair County on May 31st, 1998, and an EF-1 in Breckenridge County on May 10th, 2016. The 1983 spring season saw none!