El Nino in Detail

After reviewing an article in the Weatherflow Blog written by our wind guru Shea Gibson, we can conclude several probable outcomes for the 2015-2016 weather season. We are looking at wind information specifically and how the weather patterns of an El Nino season affects those conditions on the east coast. After doing some research on past seasons and reading Shea’s article, we can assume several things for our Floridian winter. We will have a colder and wetter season, cold fronts stall and fizzle out in the SE due to marine layer decoupling and we can expect more rain due to low pressure systems developing offshore.

Characteristically, our southeast winter season is dominated by cold fronts and Northeasterly storms. We get lots of west/northwest winds followed by a day or two of North/Northeast winds when these fronts push through. Northeast storms blast cold air from Canada down and give us some hard side-ons with large, short period surf swell.

Based on situation number two in Shea’s Article we should see some stalled out fronts with lots of rain and moisture causing 1-2 day windows of W/NW. Overall, projections aim to see average NE activity causing winter conditions and weaker SW/W winds due to decoupling(due to temperature difference of air and sea). If we end up seeing conditions from situation number one as described in the article, we should see lots of above average W/NW activity followed by more sizeable N/NE winds.

As we look forward to this season we are anticipating more frontal activity from the west and accelerated Northeasterly wind chances bringing winter weather. We will be keeping a close watch on all of the indicators and we will be sure to keep you all updated!

-Kit Fisher