Warm, dry winter expected in S. Florida

La Niña will affect storms

Pick up some sunscreen and ditch the umbrella.

The National Weather Service predicts a warmer, drier winter this season, another in the string of warm winters that South Florida has experienced over the past few years, the service’s Miami office said in a telephone news conference Friday.

We can also expect fewer tornadoes, fewer storms, more wildfires and an increased risk of rip currents, particularly in November, March and April.

The most important factor governing this season’s forecast is the likelihood of the appearance of La Niña, the periodic cooling of the Pacific Ocean off South America that influences weather patterns around the world.

If a La Niña materializes as predicted, it will lead to a northern shift of the jet stream, the high-altitude ribbon of air that flows across the northern hemi-

sphere. This will draw storm systems well north of Florida and make the cold fronts that pass through the state drier than normal.

The weather service stressed that this prediction is just that, with significant changes possible if La Niña fails to materialize or other factors influence local weather (so you may want to keep the umbrella in a drawer somewhere). Although La Niña years tend to be less stormy, for example, South Florida experienced three tornadoes during last year’s La Niña.

This would be South Florida’s sixth warm winter in a row, according to the National Weather Service. The last cooler-than-usual winter was in 2010.

“We’re having a fairly long streak of above-normal winters,” said Robert Molleda, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Miami.

Molleda said climate change is a factor, but not the only factor.

“We know that temperatures worldwide are increasing, so that certainly plays a role here in these above-normal winters,” Molleda said. But he said there were still seasonal and regional weather variations that could play an important role in determining the average temperatures of a particular winter.