2009.09.14
Will El Nino save money on your energy bills?
The New River Current ran a weekend story focused on energy bills. National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Stonefield is quoted, stating that El Nino increases the chances of having a milder than normal winter. And I've stated the same thing myself a few times before in Weather Journal columns over the years.
But a few weeks ago, I looked back on El Nino winters historically and found that it wasn't that clear-cut. In fact, winter months in previous El Nino winters were about evenly split between significantly above normal and significantly below normal in temperature, with a few close to normal. For Roanoke, El Nino winters have included our snowiest month (January 1966) and coldest winters (1977-78) on record, as well as a massive snowstorm in February 1983. The years of stronger El Ninos, like 1991-92 and 1997-98, tended to have a warmer and wetter winter than the more moderate El Nino winters, which this is projected to be as of now.
So I don't know if I'm quite ready to say that less money will be needed for heating this winter based on previous El Nino winters. Historically, wet seems a somewhat stronger bet than warm. Maybe in about another 4-6 weeks we can have a better idea how strong El Nino will be and what other factors might come into play.
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Changing focus for a moment, what has happened to the jet stream? Is it on a late summer vacation? We had that big Low form off the NC coast, then it hit eastern Virginia, then the DC-Baltimore corridor, then eastern Penn. and lower New York State, then eastern New England, then FINALLY moved out of the US. It seems like it was around for a very long time. And the current rains in the Miss.-Alabama area are taking "forever" to migrate. Analysis, Kevin?
Comment by Doug Griggs — September 14, 2009 @ 11:34 pm
Further question: is this recent trend of very slowly moving systems a short term thing, or could this be the start of something that lasts for another 2, or 4 weeks?
Comment by Doug Griggs — September 14, 2009 @ 11:38 pm
Strongest jet stream level winds remain up near the US-Canada border. Steering winds over the US are pretty weak. This is not really that unusual for early to mid September, but it may seem unusual since we had such a vigorous jet stream through the summer months, which is not typical.
The low to the west has become cut off, separated from the jet stream and spinning in place, only wobbling eastward. Once it starts affecting us we could have a heavy rain threat. More on that soon.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — September 14, 2009 @ 11:51 pm
I agree fully about the possible heavy rain threat, given a slow-moving system with Gulf moisture. But is this lack of an active jet stream likely to continue for the next two weeks? It has been terrific for golfers and sunlovers for the past couple of weeks, but if your area gets one of these lows sitting overhead for several days ...... Feel free to e-mail me if you want to wait until you post another article or blog posting.
Comment by Doug Griggs — September 15, 2009 @ 12:02 am
Doug: It will last till the first good Arctic cold front or until the El Nino subtropical jet gets going across the southern states. No real signal of either of those on the horizon, at least through the next week.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — September 15, 2009 @ 12:51 am
A warmer winter does not necessarily translate to lower heating bills. Don't forget the sunshine. My house has significant southern window exposure in the late fall and all winter. I pay much less to heat my house on a sunny day with a high of 30, than a cloudy day at 40. Yes I realize that a cloudy day will likely have been preceeded by a cloudy night when sunshine is not a factor, or followed by a cloudy night, and thus a warmer night, but in my case I think I come out ahead with the huge passive solar heating that I get in the day.
Watcha think Kevin?
Comment by Rick — September 15, 2009 @ 5:58 pm
Rick, what you say has a lot of merit, especially in light of El Nino, when the "classic" El Nino pattern (if there is in fact such a thing) might yield lots of rainy, 45ish degree days. Last winter, on the other hand, had lots of cold days, including some extreme cold, but it was dry cold with lots of sun.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — September 15, 2009 @ 9:31 pm
Very interesting point, Rick. I know from personal experience that the opposite is very true. We used to live in Alexandria, VA, where summers are both very hot AND very humid. But we had an enormous pin oak tree (well over 100 years old, according to a tree expert)in our front yard, which faced SW. Our summer cooling (A.C.) bills were substantially lower than all our neighbors on our side of the street, because that huge tree blocked a lot of afternoon sunshine. In your case, the limited hours of sunshine in deep winter (less than 10 hours between dawn and dusk on Dec. 21) must be taken into consideration, along with the shallower angle of the late autumn/winter sun. Sunshine has a much greater heating effect the higher in the sky the sun is. You would get a lot more heating from a 100% sunny day in October and March than in December and early January.
Comment by Doug Griggs — September 15, 2009 @ 9:41 pm
Kevin: 2 things. First, thanks very much for replying to my questions. Secondly, your detailed analysis of previous El Nino winters was terrific. Many reporters would simply take as "gospel" that El Nino winters lead to mild conditions, but your analysis disproved that theory as being automatic. Personally I am worried that this winter will not only have extra precip but will also have above normal snowfall, and .... gulp ... ice. I talked with a couple of fellow golfers in the Albany, NY area when I was there recently, and they both said that they did not receive that much snow last winter, but lots of ice. Unless you own a tow truck or auto repair company, (I think that) nearly everyone else would agree that ice storms are the pits.
Comment by Doug Griggs — September 15, 2009 @ 9:50 pm