News Track: How has the El Niño effect impacted Iowa this winter?

A strong El Niño effect has brought warmth across the Midwest over the last few months, sending Cedar Rapids on its way to its warmest winter on record. Meteorologists forecast the weather phenomenon should weaken come spring.

Background

Meteorologists announced last year that an El Niño effect may throw U.S. weather systems for a loop this winter.

El Niño is a weather phenomenon that arises when weak winds push warmer water toward the West Coast, which moves the Pacific jet stream south. As a result, the northern United States is warmer than usual, and the Gulf Coast and Southeast are wetter than usual.

“(Experts) do believe that El Niño will happen, and it looks like it will happen with a vengeance in terms of being moderate to strong,” said Doug Kluck, the central region climate services director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information, during a meeting last summer. “It may be the key to everything.”

El Niño impacts were expected to stretch from the late summer into the fall and winter.

What’s happened since

As expected, this winter has been warmer than average, which is likely thanks to a strong El Niño effect, said meteorologist Tom Philip with the National Weather Service Quad Cities Bureau.

Average December temperatures in Cedar Rapids were just over 10 degrees above normal. Even with a cold spell, the average temperature for January was still 1.4 degrees above normal. And, as of last Monday, the average February temperature was 35.2 degrees — almost 13 degrees above normal for Cedar Rapids.

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Mild temperatures should continue through the end of the month, making the February average for Cedar Rapids creep even higher. It could soon rival the warmest average temperature on record for the city for February, which was set in 1998 at 36.7 degrees.

“We're ranked as third for right now,” Philip said. “With the forecast highs well above average here for this weekend and next week, it should possibly get into that No. 1 spot. Time will tell.”

The average temperature across the whole meteorological winter — from December to February — is rivaling record warmth for the city, too. As of Monday data, this season’s average sat at 30.5 degrees, just under the 30.8-degree record.

“It’s looking pretty likely this winter could possibly be the No. 1 warmest on record for that time frame” for Cedar Rapids, Philip said. That warmth has been reflected across the Midwest as a whole, he added, although this winter may not rank as high in other areas with more extensive temperature records.

This year’s El Niño is showing signs of weakening, the weather service’s Climate Prediction Center announced this month. Forecast teams predict weather patterns may transition to neutral during the spring.

A La Niña event — which historically tends to follow strong El Niño events — may develop this summer. La Niña is El Niño’s colder counterpart caused by strong winds, which results in warmer and drier winters in the southern United States and cooler temperatures in the North.

Brittney J. Miller is the Energy & Environment Reporter for The Gazette and a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: (319) 398-8370; brittney.miller@thegazette.com