Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Climate

Welcome to Our Chaotic Neutral Spring

La Niña is over. El Niño is coming. In between, there’s Neutral — it’s just chaotic now.

A robin and a la niña graph
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, NWS

For the past three years, our planet’s climate patterns have been ruled by a surprisingly long “triple-dip” La Niña. But a regime change is coming: La Niña is finally over.

One-third of the pattern of shifting winds and ocean temperatures along the Pacific that meteorologists call the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, La Niña is known for cooler temperatures and strong easterly winds. These come together to create extra-long, extra-destructive hurricane seasons, like the ones we’ve seen over the past few years, and parching the Southwest with drought.

Its counterpart, the El Niño, does the opposite, causing ocean temperatures to rise and winds to slow or even change direction. The northern United States and Canada become dryer than usual, and the Gulf Coast and South, at least in theory, see more rain and floods.

Usually, each climate pattern lasts somewhere between nine to 12 months, and we can sometimes go years without seeing either one.

While climate scientists think an El Niño is likely coming this summer, we are, for now, in the final third of ENSO, enjoying a period of relative calm that’s simply known as ENSO Neutral. This is when our planet’s climate patterns settle back to “normal,” with surface temperatures on the Pacific mostly hewing close to average and weaker easterly winds than during a La Niña.

But don’t be fooled: Calm on a global scale doesn’t necessarily mean calm on the ground.

Every year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, publishes a report called the spring outlook, which is exactly what it sounds like: a late-winter prediction of what the season ahead will look like. This year’s report, published Thursday, makes the coming spring look like a mixed bag.

First, the good news: All the rain and snow slamming into California over the last few months has, at least temporarily, helped ease the La Niña-enhanced drought that’s gripped the West for years. According to the report, “winter precipitation, combined with recent storms, wiped out exceptional and extreme drought in California for the first time since 2020, and is expected to further improve drought conditions this spring.”

But easing the drought has come at a cost. Wind, floods, mudslides, and piles upon piles of snow have devastated communities and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands in California — and more rain is on the way. Once all the snow that’s fallen on mountains across the country starts to melt, NOAA predicts floods will come to other parts of the country as well. "Approximately 44% of the U.S. is at risk for flooding this spring,” said Ed Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center, in the spring outlook. Unlike the floods that hit California over the past few months, which were mostly due to torrential rain, spring floods are likely to come from rivers saturated with snowmelt overtopping their banks.

Map of flood outlook for spring 2023.Image courtesy of NOAA.


But snowmelt should bring some much-needed relief to parts of the Colorado River basin, which is in the midst of a drought that’s brought Lake Powell and Lake Mead to historic lows. Yet as droughts ease in some places, they look likely to spread or worsen in others. NOAA expects our “Neutral” spring to bring above-average temperatures and potential droughts to parts of New Mexico and Washington State that are currently drought-free.

For a period of relative calm, that sounds pretty chaotic. But an El Niño might be even worse — it tends to bring periods of warming, and some think the arrival of one this summer could be a preview of what the world would be like under 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming.

Enjoy our chaotic Neutral moment while it lasts.

Yellow

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Climate

AM Briefing: EPA Reportedly to Roll Back Power Plant Emission Regulations Today

On power plant emissions, Fervo, and a UK nuclear plant

EPA Will Reportedly Roll Back Power Plant Emission Regulations Today
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: A week into Atlantic hurricane season, development in the basin looks “unfavorable through JuneCanadian wildfires have already burned more land than the annual average, at over 3.1 million hectares so farRescue efforts resumed Wednesday in the search for a school bus swept away by flash floods in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.

THE TOP FIVE

1. EPA to weaken Biden-era power plant pollution regulations today

EPA

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Politics

Big Tech Cares About Clean Energy Tax Credits — But Maybe Not Enough

Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and the rest only have so much political capital to spend.

Tech company heads.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

When Donald Trump first became a serious Presidential candidate in 2015, many big tech leaders sounded the alarm. When the U.S. threatened to exit the Paris Agreement for the first time, companies including Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook (now Meta) took out full page ads in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal urging Trump to stay in. He didn’t — and Elon Musk, in particular, was incensed.

But by the time specific climate legislation — namely the Inflation Reduction Act — was up for debate in 2022, these companies had largely clammed up. When Trump exited Paris once more, the response was markedly muted.

Keep reading...Show less
Climate Tech

Fervo Snags $206 Million for Cape Station Geothermal

The new funding comes as tax credits for geothermal hang in the balance.

Fervo geothermal.
Heatmap Illustration/Fervo

The good news is pouring in for the next-generation geothermal developer Fervo Energy. On Tuesday the company reported that it was able to drill its deepest and hottest geothermal well to date in a mere 16 days. Now on Wednesday, the company is announcing an additional $206 million in financing for its Cape Station project in Utah.

With this latest tranche of funding, the firm’s 500-megawatt development in rural Beaver County is on track to deliver 24/7 clean power to the grid beginning in 2026, reaching full operation in 2028. The development is shaping up to be an all-too-rare phenomenon: A first-of-a-kind clean energy project that has remained on track to hit its deadlines while securing the trust of institutional investors, who are often wary of betting on novel infrastructure projects.

Keep reading...Show less
Green