Breana Noble | Collegian
The weather phenomena El Niño is expected to bring a warmer winter to Michigan.
Brace yourselves, El Niño is coming. Michiganders can expect an unseasonably warm winter this year, thanks to the weather phenomenon sweeping up from the equator.
Every few years, the water temperature in the equatorial Pacific rises, causing a global climate shift that particularly affects U.S. winters. States in the North will experience warmer, drier weather, while southern states can expect winter to be cool and stormy.
Southern Michigan temperatures are more than 40 percent likely to be above average from December through February, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. Temperatures in upper Michigan have a 50 to 60 percent likelihood of increasing.
It is too early in the season to predict the precise effects of El Niño, but this year’s is expected to be one of the strongest on record.
Michigan has not experienced a strong El Niño since the winter of 1997-’98, in which the state saw only 22 of the average 43 inches of snow. During the El Niño of 1982-’83, Christmas Day reached a balmy 64 degrees.
Named “The Little Boy” by Peruvian fishermen because of its arrival around Christmastime, El Niño can be either beneficial or detrimental to various regions across the globe.
In Michigan, warmer temperatures could be a boon for shippers, farmers, and hunters. However, El Niño is projected to cause flooding in drought-stricken California, and shifting rainfall patterns are fertilizing some regions in South America while producing droughts in others.
From Hillsdale students, El Niño stirs mixed reactions.
Sophomore Calli Ring, a native of California, said she was excited for another snowy winter.
“I like snow because I don’t get any,” she said. “If it’s going to be cold, I want snow.”
Sophomore Daniel Cody, on the other hand, is all for warmer weather.
“It’s nice not to have to go into a building and have to spend the next hour trying to warm up your hands,” Cody said.