Forecasting El Niño's Impacts on TV:
Best Estimates or Pandering to the Public?

"El Niño weather" and "weather during an El Niño" are not the same thing. The main point here is that not every weather, climate or water-related event that happens during the 12-18 month lifetime of an El Niño event can be considered to have been caused by that El Niño. Weather extremes happen, with or without an El Niño being in progress.

I am going out on a limb here. I have been studying and researching El Niño and its impacts for more than thirty years. So, I believe that I have a sense of what weather anomalies one might expect to see during an El Niño episode. I also know a lot (not all) about the science of the El Niño process. In fact, today a lot of people do — and not just physical scientists. People have come a long way in thirty years with respect to their awareness of this natural phenomenon occurring in the tropical Pacific Ocean thousands of miles away.

Yet, I am frustrated when weather forecasters assert that various extremes in the United States and in other parts of the globe are the result of the weak-to-moderate El Niño of 2006-07. For example, several forecasters responsible for weather reporting on major TV channels — people who should have known better — have been calling "this snowfall" or "that tornado" an "El Niño snow" or an "El Niño tornado." They talk about these extremes as being part of a "typical El Niño pattern." But this El Niño is anything but typical in terms of the cluster of expected (or foreseeable) climate, water and weather anomalies that might be "linkable" to an El Niño. In fact, forecasters seem to be guilty of "ignore-ance" (as opposed to ignorance); that is, they purposely ignore mentioning the various weather extremes that are not associated with a typical El Niño, extremes that have also occurred in 2006-07.

Back in 1982, two researchers produced a diagram of what they called a "canonical" (i.e., typical) El Niño. However, the very next El Niño (1982-83) was very different: it started at a different time of the year, reached an unprecedented intensity, and caused billions of dollars in damage. After the 1982-83 El Niño, forecasters then said that no two El Niños were alike. The real answer, of course, lies somewhere in between. There are likely to be different types of El Niños, depending on when they start, where in the tropical Pacific the ocean heats up, and the set of impacts with which each type is associated.

We do know that there are some worldwide weather, water and climate-related anomalies (departures from normal) that have a higher likelihood of being linked to an El Niño. Taken together, these might be viewed as a small cluster of impacts worldwide that usually appear during an El Niño. For example, such a cluster would, in my view, include the following:

Drought in the Philippines and in Indonesia, a sharp increase in forest fires in Indonesia with widespread haze throughout Southeast Asia, drought conditions in Australia and in southern Africa, drought in Northeast Brazil and simultaneous flooding in southern Brazil, extremely dry conditions in North America's Pacific Northwest, heavy rains in northern Peru and southern Ecuador, a mild winter across the northern half of the United States, extremely wet conditions in the southwestern United States, and epecially in southern California, cool weather in Florida, and a warm winter in the northeastern United States.

From website of International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University

In fact, some of these impacts did occur in late 2006 and early 2007. Many, however, did not. And that is my point! In fact, several of what I would consider to be part of a cluster of "signal" locations for an El Niño's impacts were not affected as one might have expected, including, for example:

The US Pacific Northwest was wet (not dry), the central northern part of the USA was cold and blustery (not a mild winter), and heavy rains and flooding occurred in Indonesia and Malaysia (not drought). Also, El Niño-related heavy rains have yet to fall in southern California.

This suggests to me that the TV weather forecasters on major channels have been pandering to the public's curiosity if not fascination about extreme weather disasters. The public tends to view El Niño as being synonymous with disasters. Perhaps, pandering relates in part to the pressure of TV forecasters to be first (and hopefully to be right) with a forecast of trouble ahead, and in part to their own wishful thinking to talk about something they consider to be attention-grabbing and newsworthy. Keep in mind the reality that normal weather is not newsworthy. They seem to have forgotten that their forecasts about the various hazards that an El Niño can spawn should be based on a careful review of the history, not just of El Niño but of El Niño's impacts as well. Forecasting the onset and progress of an El Niño is very different from forecasting the impacts attributable to that particular El Niño. TV forecasters can interpret weather patterns as they wish, but they have a responsibility to the viewing public and to the scientific community to provide accurate information about climate and weather processes.

To me, these examples represent a miscommunication of science. Forecasters know that it is risky to link a specific weather event or extreme to an El Niño, but they make the link anyway when they talk of "typical" El Niño impacts. So, even if it does not make a difference to the affected public that a tornado was erroneously linked to El Niño, should it be a concern of the TV weather forecasting community? I believe forecasters have a responsibility to the science as well as to the public to get it as right as can be. Weather broadcast personalities are not exempt from being factually correct.