A look at the Super El Nino of 1982-1983

Our last two winters were influenced by La Nina.  Those seasons brought repeated outbreaks of cold air to parts of the United States, though snowfall and precipitation varied from region to region. The transition to a potentially historic El Niño could dramatically shift storm tracks across North America. Even so, meteorologists caution that El Niño is only one factor that determines how a winter ultimately unfolds.

What’s going on right now?

Latest SST anomaly from Coral Reef Watch.

 

As I said in the last El Nino post, we’re in the arctic sea ice and glacial melt season. This is an important thing to keep an eye on.  The ice is going to continue to melt for the next 6 to 8 weeks; before it reverses. How much sea ice we can hang on to in the Bering and East Siberian Seas as well as the Arctic Ocean will be very important factor when we get closer to the coming winter.

 

Image curtesy of Tropical Tidbits

Currently Siberia and Alaska are seeing colder temperatures, this will help slow down the extent of ice melt for the short term, but as I said we’re going to see the ice continue to melt into the middle to end of September. Then the ice will reestablish itself. It remains to be seen how quickly that will happen.

 

Sea Ice extent around Alaska is a little less than it was that the same time in 2025.

 

El Nino continues to get stronger as we get deeper into hurricane season, with long-range outlooks showing that we're still on track to see potentially one of the strongest El Nino's on record this fall or winter.

 

Currently, the three-month average for the Nino 3.4 region is 1.5°C, which falls into the strong category.

The El Nino of 1982-1983

As I said in the last post on El Nino; an El Nino is a natural climate event caused by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), through which we see above average warming of the eastern into central equatorial Pacific Ocean. If you what to review what I said, click this link.

The last post focused on the super El Nino of 1997-1998, this one will go into 1982-1983.

The 1982–83 El Nino was one of the strongest on record, caused a very warm winter in much of North America and Europe. SST anomalies in Nino region were +1.0 to +1.4°C, making it moderate to strong.

 

The 1982 Atlantic hurricane season was the least active in over 50 years, at that time, with only one subtropical storm, five named storms, two hurricanes, and one major hurricane in the Atlantic–Caribbean–Gulf region

The 1982-1983 Winter

The super 1982–1983 El Nino brought unusually warm temperatures, with generally lower than average precipitation, but with below-average snowfall across much of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, with occasional icy conditions.

Temperatures

The warm, moist air from the Gulf and Atlantic interacted with cold fronts to produce mixed precipitation in some areas, with rain more common than snow.

December was very warm for the eastern 2/3rds of the CONUS. Temperatures cooled off for January across the South and Southeast. But they remained very warm across the Great Lakes and Northeast. February saw temperatures across the Northeast into northern Middle Atlantic warm even more. March 1983 was also very warm.   

Precipitation

But in spite of the warm temperatures, there were some major snowstorms.

The 1982–83 El Nino greatly altered jet stream patterns, contributing to the mild winter but also allowing some cold air outbreaks and storm systems to bring some extreme snow events. The combination of warmth and moisture created a paradoxical winter: mild enough for unusual outdoor activity, but stormy enough to cause significant snowfall and travel disruptions.

The January Snowstorm

Low-pressure system formed over the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin, as the storm moved to the east it pulled in a lot of cold air, Gulf Moisture was also pulled north, a secondary low formed and moved up the Atlantic coast, then exploded over the upper Hudson Valley. This became the Northeast’s first snowstorm January 13th-15^th of 1983. The storm buried northern New York under 2 to 3 feet of snow, 24.5 inches of snow on Albany and 27 inches on Saratoga Springs. The storm generally dumped 13–22 inches across Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island New England, snow extended as far south as Delaware. The mountains in western Maryland ended up with 6 inches of snow.

The February 1983 Megalopolitan Blizzard

In February a major storm struck the mid-Atlantic states, New York metropolitan area and southern New England. It started as a low-pressure system over eastern Texas on February 9, 1983, and moved eastward across the Gulf of America on the 10^th. As the low continued to push toward the East Coast before heading northeast where it intensified further near the Carolina coast. As surface pressure dropped it moved up the Coast, high pressure north of the low, provided plenty of cold air wrapping in on the back side. Once it paralleled the I-95 corridor heading toward southern New England on February 12th.  All the moisture dragged northward ran into the cold air resulting in a near blizzard. In the metro areas from Washington D.C. northward into southern New England between 12 and 16 inches was recorded.

 

Snowfall in the northern and central Adirondacks and Catskills was below normal, consistent with the broader pattern of reduced snow throughout the northern U.S.

The warm, moist air from the Gulf and Atlantic interacted with cold fronts to produce mixed precipitation in some areas, with rain more common than snow. The subtropical jet stream was stronger than normal, steering more active storm systems from the south and southeast into the Mid-Atlantic. But in spite of this, the region as a whole saw generally below average amounts of snow. The warm, moist air from the Gulf and Atlantic interacted with cold fronts to produce several mixed precipitation events in many areas, with rain more common than snow. Snowfall in the northern and central Adirondacks along with the Catskills was below average.

During the winter of 1982-1983 the Coastal Plain and the I-95 saw very little snow.

Seasonal snowfall for the major I-95 Cities during the 1982–1983 winter season

New York City recorded 26.4 inches of snow at the KNYC station

Washington, D.C. area recorded 27.6 inches of snow at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (KDCA)

Boston’s Logan International Airport (KBOS) recorded 32.7 inches of snow

Baltimore, Maryland, the total annual snowfall was 30.3 inches

Philadelphia recorded a total snowfall of 36.0 inches at the Philadelphia International Airport (KPHL)

The Great Lakes

Across the northern Great Lakes, the 1982-1983 El Nino’s, it was a very mild and dry winter, with very low ice cover. The Great Lakes as a whole saw the lowest Great Lakes ice cover over the lakes since systematic records began in 1960. This was due to above-average lake temperatures, which reduced lake effect snow totals compared to average years.

Not all El Nino’s are the same.

Atmospheric patterns such as the MJO, Pacific North American pattern and the Arctic Oscillation will control the weekly and even monthly overall pattern. These other teleconnections can greatly impact variability and the local pattern.  

The El Nino of 2009-2010

For December 2009 to February 2010 the NINO3 index, computed from the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis, averaged 1°C. Which made it a moderate El Nino, even though it wasn’t strong it was a fairly substantial El Nino. Many times, temperatures during El Nino have the northern US warmer than average. But the winter of 2009 through 2010 was quite different though. Much of the central and eastern US underwent colder than average temperatures along with a series of major snowstorms. For some areas in the Middle Atlantic region, it ended up being one of their snowiest winters on record.

Why was the 2009-2010 El Nino so cold and snowy? We conclude that the anomalously high levels of snow in the mid-Atlantic states of the U.S. and in northwest Europe this past winter were forced primarily by a persistent negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and to a lesser extent by the El Nino.

 In summary

 While it is far too early to know exactly how all of this will unfold, the combination of a potentially a very strong El Nino and several other important teleconnection climate signals as well as Siberian snow cover and Arctic sea ice during the fall, will all influence how much cold air becomes available later in the season and how the storm track sets up.

While the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) sets up the overall pattern behind the scenes, like an enhanced southern subtropical jet; Atmospheric patterns such as the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO), Pacific North American pattern (PNA), Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the NAO will control the weekly and even monthly overall pattern. These other teleconnections can greatly impact variability and the local pattern. These will help determine where cold air develops and how storms track across North America.

During the winter of 1982 and 1983, both the AO and NAO shifted into their negative phases in January into February. That change allowed colder Arctic air to move the lower 48, helping produce major snowstorms across the Midwest and Northeast.

In the previous El Nino post, I showed how the 1997-1998 Super El Nino impacted that winter. This one showed how that Super El Nino impacted that one. But I also showed how the El Nino of 2009 and 2010 behaved radically different than was expected. It still remains unclear how this year’s strong El Nino, will be very warm or coolish, will it see more snowfall and widespread storms or devastating ice storms. All of this will depend on how several of the atmospheric teleconnections come together in the months ahead. Most analogue years have a habit of showing up during a season. I don’t doubt, certain aspects of the super El Nino of 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16 will be an issue, keeping things unpredictable.

That's it for this post. I'm also going to be releasing an overlook of the Super El Nino of 2015-2016 in a few weeks.

If you have questions or like this, leave a comment and let me know.