Purdue News

March 27, 1998 El Nino brings up-and-down weather to Hoosier state WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- The El Nino of 1998 appears to be following the pattern of the El Nino of 1983, according to Ken Scheeringa, acting state climatologist at Purdue University. Scheeringa said that people are comparing this year's weather to that of 1983 and 1988 when hot, dry summers followed tropical weather events such as El Nino. "This year's weather does match up well with the El Nino of 1983," he said. "The winter of 1982 and '83 was warm and dry, very similar to the one Indiana has just experienced. April and May of 1983 were cold and wet, and that was followed by a very dry period that ran from July through September. Then the weather turned cold, leading into a bitterly cold December." Scheeringa cautioned, however, that forecasters are very undecided if the 1983 weather pattern will repeat itself this year. "But the winter of 1982-83 was a strong true El Nino event, second only to 1998 in strength," he says. "So maybe it isn't a surprise that the 1983 weather matches up so well to 1998 to date." Scheeringa said that many people mistake 1988 as an El Nino year. "Actually 1988 was a La Nina year, the cold flip side of the warm El Nino phase," he said. "In 1988 there was a cold winter and spring, followed by a dry May and summer, an extra-hot August, and then a wet fall." This year's El Nino has brought unseasonable up-and-down temperatures to the Hoosier state, exactly what meteorologists have come to expect from this weather pattern. The Indiana weather roller-coaster for the past six months has looked like this: October 1997: below-normal precipitation, normal temperatures. November 1997: below-normal precipitation, below-normal temperatures. December 1997: below-normal precipitation, above-normal temperatures. January 1998: above-normal precipitation, temperatures averaged 10 degrees above normal, making it the sixth-warmest January in Indiana in 104 years. February 1998: slightly below-normal precipitation, temperatures averaged eight to 12 degrees above normal, making it the third-warmest February in Indiana in 104 years. March 1 to March 19, 1998: above-normal precipitation, temperatures averaged three to six degrees below normal. CONTACT: Scheeringa, (765) 494-8105; e-mail, kenneth.l.scheeringa.1@purdue.edu Compiled by Chris Sigurdson, (765) 494-8415; E-mail, sig@ecn.purdue.edu Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu To the Purdue News and Photos Page