The Amazing Chase
Well, here we go again. I'm repeating myself so much I'm making myself bored.
I promised not to discuss La Niņa anymore, but that pesky Spanish moisture mistress is so much in our faces again that I can avoid it no longer.
"But we knew La Niņa would return this year." Yup, and the weather models predict that La Niņa will have choofed off by Autumn. And good riddance to her. The problem now is speculation about her return yet again for the 2012-13 storm season. That's a right, a triple La Niņa event.
It is, of course, mere speculation at this point, but it's enough to make me grumble; and start saving for another trip to the US where La Niņa is more favourable for storms.
The peak of the current La Niņa is now behind us and most global ENSO (El Niņo / La Niņa Southern Oscillation) models agree that we're heading towards a neutral phase this coming Winter / Spring. What happens beyond that period and into our next storm season is still a mystery. And like a good episode of Murder, She Wrote, I'm on the edge of my seat.
If the ENSO trend continues, we should end up in a neutral / mild El Niņo event by Christmas, which is good news for storm chasers. La Niņa brings lots of rain and moisture, but not the proper storms we love. Neutral phase = good. Unfortunately, we were at the same La Niņa point this time last year also with a nice trend towards the neutral phase of the cycle. But after hitting neutral, instead of continuing onto El Niņo, ENSO swung back into what is our current La Niņa. Will we get a repeat of last year's swing? No-one is betting their house on it just yet.
La Niņa and El Niņo events occur when temperatures in the eastern Pacific near the Americas are cooler and warmer than average respectively. Cooler temps generally means more rain for us and the warmer temps of El Niņo have the opposite effect, as we learned during the last drought. Ocean temperatures play such a large role on our weather that I wonder what it would be like if our seas were smaller.
Storm Deprivation Syndrome (SDS) is a condition I've discussed before where chasers suffer a range of symptoms due to a lack of storms to keep them chirpy. This ailment is normally only experienced during the Winter 'non-chasing' months, but with the second La Niņa year in a row and the threat of a third, SDS is more prevalent than ever.
So here are some helpful tips if you find yourself dipping into the nadir of SDS:
- Catch up with re-runs of Storm Chasers on DVD or YouTube.
- Appreciate that you can now watch the cricket without checking the radar every five minutes.
- Enjoy your newly invigorated social life.
- Spend the hundreds of dollars that would normally go towards petrol on a nice gift. Like a DVD box set of Storm Chasers.
- Arrange a romantic candle-lit dinner with your better half and actually show up.
- Take a holiday. Maybe to Tornado Alley.
- Refresh yourself with another viewing of Twister. Again.
- Have a jolly old whinge with your fellow chasers that it wasn't like this back in your day.
I hope that helps. Anyway, must run. The fourth test against India is on the telly.
Cheers,
Marty.
Marty is a professional photographer and avid storm chaser. The Amazing Chase is a bi-monthly column which appears in the Outback City Express newspaper.
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