KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, US — The earth shook for a short period of time in spring 2023 when it was announced that El Niño was evolving. Forecasts of doom and gloom were tossed about in many markets as forecasters jumped the gun predicting a devastating year for the world’s tropical crops; like oil palm, coffee, cocoa, sugar cane and rice. Some of the grain and cotton trade also was shook up a bit, but as we look back on 2023 it seems that this ENSO event did not live up to its past reputation.

From a world food production perspective the mild El Niño event was a welcome turn of events since the world was still recovering from the effects of COVID and the three-year domination of La Niña. As of this writing, El Niño has had influence on the world, but the impact has been much less severe than expected. Dryness in Southeast Asia started out looking horrific in mainland areas where spring and early summer dryness was significant, but by late summer timely rain was falling again, resulting in some drought relief.

Malaysia and the Philippines, which are normally drought stricken during El Niño events, experienced very little weather adversity this year. Northern Indonesia also experienced favorable weather through much of 2023, but drought did impact southern parts of the nation for nearly five months. However, during the fourth calendar quarter rain began falling in southern Indonesia more routinely, inducing soil moisture and crop improvements. Another area that never felt the usual effects of El Niño drought was west-central Africa where rainfall occurred normally most of the year.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has an ENSO predicting forecast model that has suggested this year’s El Niño has peaked in intensity and will begin a steady decline in January.

Eastern Australia experienced drought conditions while the previous multi-year La Niña event was abating, and when El Niño came on the dryness got worse and prevailed until the fourth quarter, when rain started to fall periodically just like in Indonesia. Eastern Australia is expecting routinely occurring rainfall over the next two weeks after seeing some significant rain earlier this season, suggesting dryland summer crop production may end up better than expected. El Niño is not over, but it has peaked in intensity and it will be steadily weakening in the next few months.

Mexico, Central America and Brazil were probably most negatively impacted by El Niño this year. Mexico already was impacted by the big North America drought pattern, and when El Niño kicked in rainfall during the summer was restricted with delayed seasonal rains. Some of the failing of seasonal rain in Mexico has been blamed on the Hunga Tonga Volcano just as has dryness in Brazil; however, both nations and Central America were drier than usual in a significant manner and that has to be at least partially attributed to El Niño.

The Amazon River Basin recorded record low water levels during the first half of 2023. It was hoped that with the development of El Niño rain would be delayed, but eventually it would occur in such a manner to support improved water levels. As of this writing, though, the Amazon River Basin has only seen a faint recovery and fear is rising over water supply in the first half of 2024 with the annual dry season just a few months away.

Argentina and southern Brazil experienced relatively typical El Niño conditions this year with rain most significant in eastern Argentina, Uruguay, southern Paraguay and southern Brazil where rainfall was well above normal while rainfall was restricted in western Argentina and northeastern Brazil. World Weather, Inc. believes weather adversity in Brazil this spring cannot be attributed entirely to El Niño. The lingering impact of greater moisture in the stratosphere resulting from the January 2022 Hunga Tonga Volcanic eruption is believed to have had a significant impact on Brazil weather, possibly contributing to the failed summer monsoon just like that in North America during its summer season.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has an ENSO predicting forecast model that has suggested this year’s El Niño has peaked in intensity and will begin a steady decline in January. The forecast model suggested that the demise of El Niño will occur aggressively enough to possibly change the anomalous weather patterns that are traditional in El Niño events.  That implies the potential for a continuation of better-than-expected weather over the next few months.  If rainfall is more routine in Southeast Asia, eastern Australia, Central Africa and northern parts of South America there may not be as many production cuts as feared earlier in 2023.

Brazil’s forecast is expected to eventually trend more favorably toward more normal rainfall in the middle to latter part of January and especially in February and March. Shortly after that, though, what little monsoon flow has evolved by then should abate and the dry season will begin.

ENSO computer modeling is not very accurate after three months, especially the NOAA forecast model.  One of the primary reasons for the poor reliability in the model beyond three months is the direct result of lack of scientific knowledge of what changes ocean temperatures.  Scientists have become very good at monitoring ocean temperature changes and they know some of the clues to watch for trend changes, but the warming and cooling of ocean water continues to be a bit of a mystery and until a new discovery is made over what induces a trend change in ocean water temperatures long-range weather forecasting will remain crippled.

With all of that said, notice the latest NOAA ENSO model forecast for mid-year 2024.  The model suggests after the rapid demise of El Niño additional cooling of ocean surface water is possible in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean resulting in the possible redevelopment of La Niña. There was only one other multi-year La Niña event that was followed by El Niño and then back to La Niña in recent history and that was in the 1970s.  That leaves the door wide open for such a development, but World Weather, Inc. remains skeptical of the forecast. Most likely the second half of 2024 will be a period of neutral ENSO conditions.

Years in which moderately strong El Niño events gave way to neutral ENSO conditions have a tendency to receive less-than-usual rainfall in the spring and summer in the US Corn Belt with temperatures that vary mostly in a seasonable to slightly warmer bias. If that occurs and precipitation stays below normal during the balance of winter in the Plains and western Corn Belt there is potential that dryness will return to stress crops in the spring and summer, especially if remnants of the Hunga Tonga Volcano prevail.

Drew Lerner is senior agricultural meteorologist with World Weather, Inc. He may be reached at worldweather@bizkc.rr.com. World Weather, Inc. forecasts and comments pertaining to present, past and future weather conditions included in this report constitute the corporation’s judgment as of the date of this report and are subject to change without notice.