Another Blizzard

In the 20 years prior to this winter, there were four major snow storms to hit our home in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. Today we are in the middle of another, the third of this winter. Outside it looks like the Arctic; people walking in the street would be hidden from the house by the hight of the snow piled on the lawn.

Apparently, this is a year of very strong El Niño, and that has pushed moisture laden clouds and very cold air masses overhead. We have all come to know that El Niño and La Niña succeed each other in a complex dance in the Pacific Ocean, warm sea surface temperatures some years, cool sea surface temperatures in others. I wonder, however, whether global warming increases either the likelihood or the extreme temperatures of the El Niño events. If so, we might be in for more bad winters.