Strong El Niño weather pattern could bring fewer hurricanes to Long Island but more frequent fall, winter storms

A weather pattern called El Niño could swing forcefully into action this summer on Long Island, with the potential to bring heavier precipitation in more frequent fall and winter storms but fewer hurricanes.

El Niño is a naturally occurring phenomenon that typically takes place every two to seven years, lasting nine to 12 months and bringing unusually warm ocean temperatures to the eastern Pacific Ocean near the Earth’s equator.

A very strong El Niño, which experts have said is possible this year, may mean that surface water temperatures rise by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or more. When temperature changes across a swath of the Earth’s surface that big, it changes prevailing wind and rain patterns, ultimately impacting climate across the globe — even weather on Long Island.

Meteorologists writing in the Yale Climate Connections blog this week trumpeted a possible "powerhouse" climatic event, based on a summary of forecast models released Monday by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts: "Every one of the 20-plus model ensemble members is predicting moderate or strong El Niño conditions by mid-June, barely two months from now."

Those predictions follow a March 12 El Niño watch issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose models predicted a 62% chance that El  Niño would emerge over the summer and persist at least through the end of 2026. At the time, NOAA said that if El Niño forms, the potential strength remains "very uncertain, with a 1-in-3 chance that it would be 'strong' during October-December 2026." (NOAA is scheduled to issue its next round of forecasts Thursday.)

The impact of El  Niño on climate could mean increased temperatures in some places around the globe. In 2023, one of the strongest El Niño years on record, the phenomenon contributed to a spate of monthly temperature records, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

"It often leads to the Earth’s atmosphere warming," said Jase Bernhardt, associate professor of sustainability and atmospheric science at Hofstra University. "It could be expected that this year could be the warmest on record, if El Niño pans out."

But El  Niño affects the Long Island region less than the West Coast and southern and northern portions of the United States, said Edmund Chang, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. For Long Island, "overall, the impact is marginal," he said, with temperature impacted more by global warming, and rainfall and snowfall impacted more by "year-to-year variability" than El Niño.

Bernhardt and Chang, however, both said for Long Island and the East Coast overall, El Niño tends to mean fewer hurricanes, because it brings higher pressure and wind shear, which impede their formation.

But El  Niño also "plants the seeds for more coastal storms in the late fall and winter," Bernhardt said. These storms, known as nor’easters, tend to occur more frequently during El Niño winters and bring coastal impacts like beach erosion, high winds, heavy snowfall and precipitation, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University.

The last strong El Niño, in 2015-16, coincided with a record-breaking January 2016 snowstorm that impacted more than 100 million Americans, dumping 23.4 inches of snow on Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma.

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.