Climate Highlight

December 10-17, 2002

 

This week's Climate Highlight concentrates on using past information on El Nino and understanding what is likely to happen this winter, as it seems that a relatively significant El Nino will occur. Below are images that depict the US maximum temperatures and precipitation over December, January, and February.

 

 

Below are contigency tables for values of El Nino and La Nina 3.4 (a location over the Pacific) that compares temperatures with winter snowfall amounts in Divisions 3, 7, and 9 in Pennsylvania. To see where these divisions exist, a map can be found on our State Data page.

Strong El Nino

		Division 3	Division 7	Division 9
Years	Average SST Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly
1972-73	1.5	-21.3	-11.68	-17.56
1982-83	1.76	17.58	-20.29	-12.67
1987-88	1.62	4.32	-4.59	0.83
1994-95	0.63	-13.62	-26.79	-20.97
1997-98	2.47	-19.52	-12.49	-23.17

Weak El Nino

		Division 3	Division 7	Division 9
Years	Average SST Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly
1976-77	0.77	-2.82	10.02	7.65
1977-78	0.52	30.48	40.82	32.14
1991-92	0.73	-13.42	-10.89	-3.97
1992-93	-0.21	12.08	27.71	25.53
1993-94	0.31	26.98	39.51	39.13

 

Strong La Nina

		Division 3	Division 7	Division 9
Years	Average SST Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly
1973-74	-1.28	-0.79	-4.68	-21.65
1975-76	-1.43	-6.71	1.65	-3.94
1988-89	-1.6	-10.52	-22.39	-16.37

 

Weak La Nina

		Division 3	Division 7	Division 9
Years	Average SST Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly	Seasonal Snowfall Anomoly
1970-71	-1.13	-5.40	25.82	10.95
1971-72	-0.72	-4.02	19.11	8.33
1974-75	-0.59	-5.20	7.01	4.03
1998-99	-1.15	-13.02	-0.39	-0.83
2000-01	-0.05	1.08	-9.69	3.83