From the World Meteorological Organization announced the beginning current El Niño on July 4, 2023, almost a year in a row record temperatures. According to the National Environmental Information Centers, it exists 61 percent chance that this year could be even hotter than last, putting areas at risk of deadly heatwaves during the summer months at risk. estimated 2,300 people in the US died in 2023 from heat-related illnesses, and scientists say this is the real number probably higher.
All this heat also settled into the oceans, creating over a year very high surface temperatures AND bleaching more than half of the planet’s coral reefs. It also provides potential fuel for hurricanes, which form when energy is drawn vertically into the atmosphere. Typically, trade winds disperse heat and moisture across the water’s surface and prevent these forces from accumulating in one place. However, during La Niña, cooler temperatures in the Pacific weaken the high-altitude winds in the Atlantic that would normally break up storms, allowing hurricanes easier to form.
“When a pattern like this in the Pacific stabilizes, it changes wind patterns around the world,” said Matthew Rosencrans, chief forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “When it’s strong, it can be the dominant signal across the planet.”
This year’s forecast is especially perilous because a likely quick mid-summer transition to La Niña could combine with all that boiling ocean water. NOAA forecasters expect at least 17 storms powerful enough to be named under these conditions, and about half of those could be hurricanes. Even a hurricane with relatively low wind speeds can dump enough water to cause catastrophic flooding hundreds of miles inland.
“It’s important to think of climate change as making things worse,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University. While human-caused warming won’t directly escalate hurricane frequency, he said it could make them more destructive. “It’s a matter of how much worse it will get,” he said.
Over the past 10 months, El Niño has contributed to soaring temperatures in parts of the United States, drying out the land. Drought-affected areas are more susceptible to severe flooding because periods without rainfall mean that rainfall is likely to be more intense when it finally comes, and soils may be too droughty to absorb the water. When droughty soil and rising temperatures cause vegetation to droughty out, wildfires start.
While the National Interagency Fire Center expects a lower-than-average chance of a major wildfire in California this year, in part because of El Niño, which brought unusually high rainfall to the state, other places may not be so lucky. Agency seasonal fire risk map highlights Hawaii, which has suffered in this country the deadliest hell partly as a result of continued drought on Maui last August. Canada, which also experienced its worst wildfire season last summer, could be in more trouble after its warmest winter on record. By May of this year, smoke was already beginning to appear from hundreds of fires in Alberta and British Columbia get across the Canadian border to the Midwestern states.
“We are leaving the climate of the 20th century and entering the new climate of the 21st century,” said Dessler. Unfortunately, our cities were built for a range of temperatures and weather conditions that no longer exist.
To prepare for hurricanes, Rosencrans said people living in states along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Ocean should go to government websites on disaster preparedness to find disaster kit checklists and tips for creating an emergency plan. “Thinking about it now, rather than when the storm is coming, will save a lot of time, energy and stress,” he said.