El Niño Declared. The Holiday Playbook Just Changed.
What history tells us about El Niño winters — and what retailers should be doing about it right now.
El Niño was officially declared on June 11 — and a Super El Niño may be on the way.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center upgraded its alert status from El Niño Watch to El Niño Advisory, signifying that El Niño conditions are now present in the equatorial Pacific and expected to strengthen.
My pal and G2 Weather Intelligence subscriber Andrew Freedman covered it for CNN — if you follow weather and climate, he’s a great read.
NOAA now puts the odds of a strong El Niño at nearly 90% and the odds of a very strong — Super — El Niño at over 60% by autumn. Some models project that Pacific sea surface temperatures will exceed the record-breaking levels of 1982-83 and 1997-98.
If verified, this would be the most powerful El Niño in recorded history.
One important caveat. The oceanic signal and the atmospheric response are not the same thing. NOAA’s own forecasters noted this week that E…
