Weather conditions that have finally reached the benchmarks of El Niño could bring increased hurricane activity this summer.
Weather conditions that have finally reached the benchmarks of El Niño could bring increased hurricane activity this summer.
The NOAA Climate Prediction Center made the arrival of the weather phenomenon official on Thursday, following months of borderline El Niño conditions sputtering along in the Central Pacific. Forecasters expect limited effects from the weak, late-forming system. But the warmer sea temperatures could stick around long enough to help build tropical cyclones.
The waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands and stretching to the southeast already range from one to 3.6 degrees above normal, following record sea surface temperatures in those regions last summer.
“A number of weather models agree El Niño will continue through the summer,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center in Washington, D.C.
The center gives a 50 to 60 percent chance of that happening.
“El Niño has the potential to increase hurricane activity in the Pacific,” he said.
Many of the Central Pacific’s most potent hurricane seasons fell on El Niño years, including 1992, the most active Pacific hurricane season on record and one in which Hurricane Iniki struck Kauai.
El Niño effects were felt last year as well, when 20 named storms formed in the Eastern Pacific, the most since the year of Iniki.
Abnormally high sea surface temperatures in the Central Pacific have been in place for months, said Kevin Kodama, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Honolulu. High surf and dry weather in January and February were local symptoms of El Niño, he said.
El Niño typically brings drier weather, and that is being born out across the state, with drought conditions creeping into Kauai and Oahu, Kodama said.
“Hilo had the most consecutive days ever without measurable rainfall — 23 days — in late January into February,” Kodama said.
Until Thursday, however, some indicators were still lacking, keeping scientists from declaring the widespread phenomenon had officially arrived.
Now that trade winds have weakened and convection has increased in the equatorial Central Pacific, meteorologists are finally satisfied they are seeing key indicators of “atmospheric coupling,” where higher sea surface temperatures begin to have noticeable effects on wind patterns and rainfall — criteria that are integral to the El Niño designation.
Email Bret Yager at byager@westhawaiitoday.com.