There’s an El Niño watch. Here’s how it could affect Western Washington weather
Meteorologists issued an El Niño watch Thursday, giving advance notice that a shifting climate pattern raises the specter of continued drought in the Northwest.
In a Thursday post at its website, the Climate Prediction Center said that the possibility of El Niño conditions forming by fall have increased to 62%, and there’s an outside chance that what some are calling a “super El Niño” could develop.
“If El Niño forms, the potential strength remains very uncertain, with a 1-in-3 chance that it would be ‘strong’ during October-December 2026,” the Climate Prediction Center said.
Deputy state climatologist Karin Bumbaco told The Bellingham Herald that El Niño conditions typically bring warmer than average temperatures and below-normal precipitation to the entire Pacific Northwest during fall and winter. That usually means a smaller snowpack, lower spring runoff and a greater chance of drought and wildfires in Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
“That’s not great news, considering that we already have drought conditions. We’re still in a La Niña, and we do not have the snowpack that we would like to see in spring,” Bumbaco said in a phone call.
La Niña and El Niño are weather patterns that move in cycles, based on surfaces temperatures of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of equatorial South America.
Colder temperatures indicate a La Niña and warmer temperatures favor El Niño.
Ocean temperatures affect the intensity and direction of storms that hit the West Coast of the United States in fall and winter. El Niño tends to send storms toward California over the course of a season, Bumbaco said. That means less rain and snow in Western Washington.
“We’re talking about the season as a whole. We are farther out in the forecast, and we’ll firm out later in the spring,” Bumbaco said.
