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As we began 2016, heavy rains were predicted for San Diego and Arizona. Anticipation of rising water sheds appear to be in our future for Arizona lakes especially on the Salt River lakes chain.

Meanwhile, the offshore water current temperatures hold and numbers of 15-30 pound yellow tail are being reported at H&M Landing from the ½- and ¾-day boats. The offshore fishing season took the Christmas holiday week off but we’re at it once again; it continues!

The El Niño currently causing mayhem around the world is predicted only to worsen in 2016 – and NASA specialists worry it could possibly get as bad as the most devastating El Niño ever.

A fresh satellite picture of the weather system has a surprising likeness to another out of December 1997 — the very worst El Niño on record — which had been attributed for severe weather conditions, including record precipitation located in California along with Peru, heat waves through Australia, plus fires within Indonesia. Those severe variables triggered approximately 23,000 deaths in 1997 and 1998.

Crazy Factors

This year, El Niño has already resulted in crazy factors for much of the United States. It resulted in a great number of Americans’ witnessing a balmy Christmas Eve, with temperatures peaking through the 70s throughout locations down the East Coast, and it is the cause of deadly storms and near-record flooding inside the South plus Midwest.

In Ethiopia, for example, the government predicts 10.2 million people will require humanitarian assistance next season because of a drought made worse by way of El Niño, according to Oxfam. In Malawi, 2.8 million people are anticipated to see food shortages as February ends.

Effects Around The U.S.A.

Around the U.S., the biggest El Niño effects are anticipated at the beginning of 2016, NASA said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasts “several months of relatively cool and wet conditions across the southern United States, and relatively warm and dry conditions over the northern United States.”

Matt Sitkowski, a coordinating weather producer at The Weather Channel, said that El Niño could result in a “wetter and stormier California” for the next two to three months — which could be a boon for the drought-stricken state.

“The fear is some of these storms come and you get too much at once, which could lead to flooding concerns,” he added. “It doesn’t take much in parts of California.”

The East Coast can potentially end up being impacted, also. The 1997-1998 El Niño brought about a crippling ice storm within New England plus southeastern Canada.

Winds Are A Reason

El Niños usually are generated any time winds within the Pacific deteriorate and / or invert course, creating rising temperatures in the ocean inside central and eastern Pacific, principally across the Equator. Clouds, in addition to storms, go along with the warming water, altering jet streams and, in addition, storm paths across the globe.