Spring Severe Weather Wrap-Up

By Seth Nagle

Midland/Odessa

El Niño and La Niña

By Seth Nagle

       While a few weak tornadoes occurred this spring over West Texas and southeast New Mexico, this past spring severe weather season was one mainly comprised of hail and wind producing severe thunderstorms.         

      This year at the Midland/Odessa National Weather Service Forecast Office has been one for the record books in terms of warning verification performance.  As seen in the graphs throughout this story,  significant improvements were noted in all three verification categories as compared to the past six weather years of verification records. 

      The False Alarm Ratio (FAR), the ratio of

Continued on page 3

      One of the most talked about subjects in weather is the role and impact of ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation), and El Niño and La Niña on conditions in the United States.  Currently, this phenomenon is in a transitional period, and moving toward El Niño as is shown in the figure on page 5 (taken from http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/~kew/MEI/mei.html).  However, with that in mind, we can start thinking about changes in the local climate that often occur with an El Niño episode in west Texas. 

      The first figure shows the departures from normal years for temperature during an El Nino year.  The yellow, orange, and red colors represent warmer than normal temperatures during the winter, and the blue shades represent cooler than normal temperatures. 

      This first illustration, shows us that winters during El Niño episodes are cooler than winters during a neutral year.  Specifically, the mean temperature 

Continued on page 5

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