Don’t panic. The water is just a little warm right now.
The climate Prediction Center has issued an advisory as we are currently experiencing a weak El Nino, that has a 65% chance of continuing through summer, and a 50-55% chance of continuing through fall. Their next diagnostics discussion will be issued on May 9th.
So, without boring you with the details, the East Pacific ocean is a tad warmer than usual which is a normal cycle is goes through. Sometimes its cooler, which is called La Niña, warmer is El Nino, and then we have normal which is neutral. When the ocean is warmer, it tends to generate more storms, so we do expect to see a somewhat active season – especially compared to the Atlantic ocean that will see less storms while we play on the teeter totter of yin and yang for balance.
As you can see, We haven’t done the whole El Nino thing very often in the last few years during the summer. We could go back to 1950, and maybe we will, but let’s start with 2009 … as 2009 an El Nino developed in the summer.
As bad as we got smacked during a neutral year in 2014, 2015 was very very busy and it started with a much weaker El Nino … let’s hope 2019 doesn’t follow suit and that the ENSO cycle state of El Nino doesn’t strengthen.
The professionals really don’t know, so I will not pretend to either. All I am thinking about right now is that just before Hurricane Blanca formed, we had those hurricane fabric things installed over our windows, and while sure it was a very weakened storm when it passed by, it ripped that fabric right off of our house hence, the reason we ended up going with accordion shutters. Official storm records only go back to 1949, but Blanca is recorded as the earliest landfall for our region (it hit further north of Los Cabos, but our state nonetheless).
I am not bringing that up to be all fear factoring (I’m not freaking) … I’m Just Jenn doing what I always do, begging you to prep your house early and get stocked up, no one wants to “that” neighbor, which we talked about before … and will again as get closer to the season, because you should always be ready for anything, not just bad weather that rarely happens in a No Bad Days kinda place.
I guess this can be considered a sort of a forecast, but not really. We’d really have to go back and look at all seasons starting with 1949 to guesstimate anything, and even then we’d be wrong. One beautiful butterfly gently passing by, can change everything. Let’s wait for the professionals to give us some more details in May. 😊
Now get yer self out on that beach and have a great day! (but do start at least making your prep lists like I always encourage everyone to do … or wait until May 9th, it DOES look beautiful outside)
xoxo,
Just Jenn