Think it was hot last summer? Just wait until the dog days of 2024 get here.
This is an El Niño year—and that’s going to adjust the weather patterns we’ve been experiencing for the past few summers, forecasters say.
“We just had the eight warmest years on record, even though we had a cooling La Niña for the past three years and this acted as a temporary brake on global temperature increase,” said Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), in a statement on Wednesday. “The development of an El Niño will most likely lead to a new spike in global heating and increase the chance of breaking temperature records.”
Much of the country is looking at above average temperatures this summer, with the eastern and Gulf Coast seaboard, as well as all of Florida and most of Texas, looking at the highest chances of an especially hot summer. The upper Midwest, Nevada, and California are less likely to see spikes.
It could also be an especially wet summer in the Southeast, with above-average seasonal precipitation forecast for virtually all of the area east and south of Missouri. The Northwest and parts of the Southwest could see less rainfall.
Despite the higher temps, there are some upsides to the El Niño. They typically bring fewer Atlantic hurricanes and could help the drought in the West.
Like pretty much anything weather-related, of course, an El Niño is not a certainty, forecasters say. The latest update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there’s a 62% chance of El Niño conditions for the May–July period. By the fall, that probability increases to 80%.
If the weather phenomenon does form, it’s uncertain how strong it will be. Still, the WMO is warning citizens and governments to be prepared, indicating we could be looking at a repeat of 2016—the warmest year on record, due to a “double whammy” of El Niño and global warming.