El Nino 2009-2010/ Snow Cover

It has definitely been a very snowy winter this season, and the Nor'Easter today has broken some records in some parts of the Northern Atlantic States (i.e. 114-Year Old Snowfall Record Broken For NYC Central Park.) Why so much snow? The El Nino pattern that we've been in since December 2009 has much to do with the recent occurrences of the white stuff. Typically in an El Nino pattern, more warm areas are found in Southern Canada as cold snowy weather can be found in the east and south east. Forecasters predicted that the El Nino would strengthen as the winter progressed and an indicator of this has been the colder temperatures found in parts of Florida and the south east. El Ninos usually occur every four to five years, in fact the last occurring from December 2006 to February 2007. Below is a visual representation of the El Nino weather phenomenon as well as the La Nina weather phenomenon:


All this snow has covered much of the Northern Hemisphere and according the the NOAA's National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (NOHSRC), 52.4% of North America is covered by snow or ice. It's not nearly as close as the analysis a month ago, in which 69.7% of North America was covered. This analysis shows that there has been much snow melt, but with much of the snow melting there has been flooding in some areas. Is it just me or does the map from a month ago look very reminiscent to the map at the end of the Day After Tomorrow? Hmmm....

February 26, 2010

January 31, 2010