I distinctly remember early January 2024 like it happened yesterday.
A severe tornado outbreak was ongoing on Jan. 9 across the deep south into the Florida panhandle. Powerful thunderstorms rapidly developed in the warm sector of our approaching winter storm, only fueled further by the subtropical jet ripping across the Northern Gulf coastline.
A total of 44 tornadoes occurred impacting millions in just the span of a couple of days. The Florida panhandle specifically was given a substantial black eye from the number of tornadoes they realized, some strong enough to obtain the EF3 rating.
The winter tornado season didn’t end there either, with February racking up above-average numbers shortly after a few more low-end tornado outbreaks affected various regions of the eastern United States.
Now we fast-forward to this year. We’ve had a whopping SINGLE tornado report since the start of the new year.
Currently, I’m pinpointing a bowling bowl-like cold pocket getting ready to push its way into the Southern and Central Plains that could produce some severe weather and an occasional tornado. But nonetheless, this winter so far has proven VASTLY different from the last.
Why is that? I’m here to break down some of the science, and it’s directly related to one thing - ENSO.
ENSO probably rings a ton of bells if you’ve followed us for a while, or perhaps you enjoy tracking the tropics alongside the pinpoint weather team during the hurricane season. El Nino and La Nina are primary contributors in the large-scale pattern that concentrate the threat for tornadoes in the plains and in Dixie Alley.
We are currently dealing with a La Nina pattern across the equatorial Pacific. This has significant implications on the way our jet streams arrange themselves during the winter, spring, and summer time even. Last year, we were in a POWERFUL El Nino pattern.
Because of this, we had a lot more warmth and wind shear to tap into for the South and Southeast United States, which is why Florida especially saw an above-average amount of tornadoes during January and February.
We’ve had some pretty intense winter storms barrel their way across the country, some producing supercells of course. But let’s look at it this way; a historic tornado and severe weather outbreak had just concluded mid-January 2024.
And now? We just wrapped up a historic southeast SNOW event unlike we’ve seen in a long time if ever.
If that isn’t a testament to how different the winter seasons can vary, then I don’t know what is!
El Nino naturally increases warmth, moisture, and shear for us in the Southeast when it’s established as prevalent as it was during December, January, and February of 2023-2024. Because of the increase in jet stream winds throughout our region, we also see an influx in what are called “synoptic” scale storm systems capable of producing long-duration bouts of severe weather.
Finally, combine that with anomalously warm Gulf waters, and the tornado recipe is perfected.
We do still have the warmer waters to our west, but a lacking jet stream pattern that’s keeping a lot of the energy to our north. The threat of severe weather will always exists for areas prone to tornadoes. But because of our big-picture pattern, this winter may prove to be a lot more quiet than the year before.
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