I can see into the future - or maybe the past.

All winter long I have become an armchair meteorologist. If I could put a Doppler Radar System on my roof - I would. In my completely uneducated meteorology world, things are becoming a little spooky accurate.

First I started predicting that we are in a La Nina on February 2nd. Not an El Nino. Blogged about it here. Yet despite Tivo'ing though an insane amount of weather news, I still hear nothing but talk about El Nino.

Yes - I can now absorb the contents of almost any show at 3x's Tivo fast forward. That really helps with my ADD. But I digress.

So - all winter long - it couldn't be more obvious to me that we are in a La Nina, and it isn't even my job to recognize these things. I was just doing some research on stocks and being unhappy about the freezing temps and lack of rain. But still - I can't comprehend a more text-book case.

I took this picture on 2/6/07


Now let us compare it to the example from my blog entry and Wikipedia.



This is a picture taken on 2/7/07 talking about January's conditions.



This picture was taken on 2/20/07.



Now let us compare it to the second example picture from my blog entry.



This picture taken on 2/23/07.



This picture taken 3/1/07



There were only a handful of people talking about La Nina back in the fall of last year. This year I finally I found someone else has starting to say things look like La Nina too. Photography on the Run. Although most accounts are cautious because there hasn't been an official word stating this is La Nina year. Though hopefully now the tide seems to be turning here and here.

The reason I am making a big deal about this?

In this big boring blog entry I tried to make a connection between La Nina years, especially cold dry ENSO years - and years that had not only the most, but the most severe tornados. And so far this year there has been a dramatic increase in activity. Also a pretty good sign of a La Nina. And a ominous outlook for the tornado season.

I thought I was being clever, but there actually does seem to be a connection.

From Nasa.

"The ENSO cycle can effect micro- to mesoscale events, like tornadoes and their parent thunderstorms (TRMM LIS data). It has observed that tornadoes during an ENSO cold phase (La Niña) are stronger and remain on the ground longer than do warm phase (El Niño) tornadoes. "

I think it is a horrible miscalculation for meteorologists to be so slow to advise people to be prepared for a more active tornadic season. If it doesn't happen - all the better, but right now history seems to be repeating itself.