Is this summer cooler than last?

(KTAB/KRBC) – If you think about last summer, you remember those hot blistering days that felt never-ending. It was one of the hottest summers since 2011, with 66 days being over 100 degrees, and 33 of those days being 105 degrees or higher, but as we flash forward to this summer, conditions have been a little less uncomfortable across Texas with cooler and wetter conditions down in the southern part of the state and even a little bit of relief here in the Big Country for a couple of weeks. You may be wondering why it is that things are less intense this time around but felt almost unbearable last summer. While there are a handful of factors that play into this, the one that plays a significant role in all our seasons is the El Nino-Southern Oscillation or ENSO.

Now what exactly is ENSO, you may ask? It is defined as the global phenomenon that emerges from the variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical Pacific Ocean that varies from year-to-year. Several opposite phenomena switch up, which include: La Nina, El Nino, and ENSO Neutral. While there is no specific timeline of when these may occur, scientists say that El Nino occurs more often than La Nina, and ENSO neutral is the in-between phase that we typically see before heading into either La Nina or El Nino. I know that there may be so many questions on what exactly influences these changes but to put it into the simplest terms, there is an extreme amount of atmospheric dynamics that play into it, so at the end of the day, scientists and meteorologists will keep you up-to-date on what is to come and what to expect as we head into a change in our climate.

Switching gears back to last summer, we all remember that heat but also the lack of precipitation across the entire state that enhanced our drought conditions and decreased a lot of lake levels then caused many water restrictions, which was due to La Nina. NOAA says that this causes cooler temperatures across the globe, but unfortunately for the southern parts of the United States that is not the case. As we headed into the new year, we began to see a shift in phases, and by the spring/early summer, El Nino had arrived for us which meant cooler and wetter conditions but drier and hotter conditions for the rest of the globe. Here in the Big Country, while we saw about two weeks of cooler temperatures, we didn’t see as much relief as places such as Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston. This could be because El Nino was a bit friendlier to them, but we still can’t ignore the fact that we saw a little bit of rain in June and July that helped keep those water restrictions down through the summer.

Unfortunately heading into the “Dog days” of this summer we are beginning to see lake levels drop even further, water restrictions being put in place, and rain chances slimming all due to the transition from El Nino into La Nina which is labeled as the Neutral Phase. It was a short run for the El Nino phase that helped keep things down south more moderate and even some cooler temperatures for a short while for us but as we head into our winter, temperatures will remain above normal with drier conditions that will persist as long as La Nina sticks around.

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