You Can Now Blame El Niño and La Niña For the Extreme Weather Outbreaks, Planting Delays This Spring

From the slew of tornado outbreaks since late April, to more planting delays across the U.S., the extreme weather is caused by a combination of weather phenomena, including the quick switch from El Niño to La Niña.

The transition from El Niño to La Niña has been underway, and now the National Weather Service (NWS) Climate Prediction Center (CPC) thinks El Niño will transition to the neutral state of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) next month.

NWS Forecasters say:

• La Niña has a 49% chance of developing in June to August with a 69% it develops between July to September.
• A transition from El Niño to #ENSO-neutral is likely in the next month.
• La Niña may develop in June-August (49% chance) or July-September (69% chance).
• An #ElNino Advisory and #LaNina Watch remain in effect. https://t.co/5zlzaZ1aZx pic.twitter.com/exrBOWBcCR

As the transition unfolds, it’s partially what’s causing such an active stretch of severe weather in April and May. Mother Nature continued to strike with more tornado outbreaks across the U.S. last week.

“It turns out we saw approximately 380 tornadoes in the us during the month of April. If you look at all the years back to 1950, all the April’s, this will rank as the number two all-time. The only year we saw more us tornadoes was the historic April 2011,” says Brad Rippey, USDA Meteorologist.

Rippey says that year, the U.S. saw more than 800 tornadoes.

But this year, the extremely active weather pattern is fueled by three factors.

“Severe weather is has a few requirements. So one is that there has to be cold air, there has to be warm and humid air and usually need a little twist in the atmosphere,” says Drew Lerner, founder, president and senior Agricultural Meteorologist at World Weather Inc.

Lerner says it’s been a few years since the atmosphere had such a contrast like were’ seeing now.

“We keep getting these colder air masses coming down from Canada. Some of them don’t seem to be very significant at the surface, but they’re there on the aloft,” he says.

“When you see that northeast track on pacific energy that allows the gulf and the Atlantic to open up with the moisture, it creates a pretty strong temperature gradient from northwest to southeast across the country. So that’s factor number one,” Rippey adds.

Another major factor is the transition from El Niño and La Niña.

“When we do move very quickly, from an El Niño and La Niña, and that’s what we’re doing. We were solidly in El Niño in January supposed to be in l La Niña. by July. In those years, there’s the atmosphere gets really confused, because it’s going out of a very persistent pattern and moving into one that is totally opposite,” Lerner explains.

“You put all those factors together. And we have seen this near record setting activity for severe weather in April continuing into early May,” he says.

Relentless Rains

That record-setting activity isn’t just the number of tornadoes, but the amount of rain that’s fallen since April 24th. Parts of Texas faced flooding over the weekend after 9-inches of rain fell in parts of Texas in a span of six to eight hours.

It’s also sidelining planting across the U.S. The latest look at planting progress from USDA showed as of last Sunday, 36% of the country’s corn crop was planted, which is 3-points behind average. The “I” states, Illinois, Indiana and Iowa, were all running slightly behind the five-year average.

“A few weeks ago, getting into the middle to even the latter part of April, things were looking fantastic,” Rippey says. “We saw good progress on just about all major us summer crops, including corn and soybeans. But things have really shut down.”

A Pattern Change

While relentless rains brought planting to a screeching halt in parts of eastern Kansas and Missouri, some farmers have barely started to plant this year, but Lerner thinks that weather pattern will change in a couple weeks.

“I don’t know that it’s going to be all that long lasting,” says Lerner. “We’re already seeing a pattern change in the second week of the outlook of sores, we’re going to get away from the extreme on the high-volume end of the rainfall, but we’re still going to keep weather systems moving through quickly.”

Rippey says more breaks of rain in the forecast will also open more windows to plant.

“This is not going to be a year like 2008 or 2019, where we have interminable delays that are related to wetness throughout the soil profile,” Rippey says. “This should dry out we just need a few dry days, a few warm days some wind and things will get back to normal.”

Another change that could help the soils dry out is forecasted heat.

“Once we get beyond the first week of this forecast, we will start getting into some warmer weather. So, as we get beyond mid-month, let’s say, we’ll start seeing a warmer bias to the temperatures and that means a faster rate of drying between each of the storm systems that go through,” says Lerner.

The La Niña Effect

But that warmth—and the sudden switch to La Niña- are both unwelcome news for areas still battling drought. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, only 15% of the country is facing drought, but areas of the Northwest and Southwest are seeing pockets of extreme conditions.

“Unfortunately, we continue to have this incredible gradient between the haves and the have nots,” Rippey says.

Areas of south central Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico and even parts of Texas, are still battling drought.

“Unfortunately, the outlooks that go into the summer and beyond indicate that we could most definitely see this persistence of that dry pattern, partly related to the transition to La Niña as we move into the heart of the growing season, summer and beyond.

Lerner says as La Niña brings a dry and warm bias to those areas, they’re running out of time to see relief in the form of rain.

“There will be some rain next week across some of that area. But i don’t think it’s going to be a good soaking, I think that they’re going to keep the moisture deficits there. And as we move into late May and early June, and we start building that ridge of high pressure up in the middle of the country, we will cut out that opportunity for rain again. And so it’s going to be a short window of opportunity for improvement,” Lerner says.

With La Niña typically bring drought conditions to somewhere in the Cotton Belt, it’s also a concern for everything from wheat and sorghum to even irrigated corn.

“There are big concerns with the transition to La Niña looking forward,” Rippey says. “And a lot of the dynamical and statistical guidance certainly does suggest drier than normal conditions for the high plains through the heart of the summer.”