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UW ATMS 211 - Impacts of 1997–98 El Niño– Generated Weather in the United States

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1819Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society1. IntroductionThe societal, economic, and environmental impactsof weather events and climate conditions in the UnitedStates normally vary spatially across the nation, andfor any given period such as a season or year, the im-pacts reveal a mix of regional winners and losers. Thiswas certainly true with the impacts resulting fromEl Niño-generated weather during 1997–98.The early official predictions of more storms inparts of the nation and heavy precipitation for theSouth and Far West (Climate Prediction Center Au-gust 1997) created concerns about damaging impacts.The Federal Emergency Management Agency(FEMA) (1997a,b) issued warnings to promote miti-gative activities, and with the help of considerablemedia hype (Glantz 1998), a nationwide perceptiondeveloped that all “El Niño weather” was going to bedamaging. For example, FEMA (1997c) releases andthe Financial Times (1997) tied the strong El Niño1997–98 conditions to the huge U.S. losses from theequally strong El Niño of 1982–83, with 161 killedand losses of $2.2 billion (1983 dollars). Such cita-tions likely resulted from El Niño forecasts that in-cluded comparisons of the strong (warm) El Niño of1997–98 to the magnitude of the 1982–83 event [Cli-mate Prediction Center (CPC) 1997]. California news-papers focused on the 1982–83 losses in California,which included 14 killed and $265 million in dam-ages (San Francisco Chronicle, 1997; SacramentoBee, 1997). This helped lead to considerable concernand launched major mitigation endeavors in Califor-nia where storm and rain predictions were ominous.Impacts of 1997–98 El Niño–Generated Weather in theUnited StatesStanley A. ChangnonChangnon Climatologist, Mahomet, IllinoisCorresponding author address: Dr. Stanley A. Changnon, ChiefEmeritus and Principal Scientist, Changnon Climatologist, 801Buckthorn Circle, Mahomet, IL 61853.In final form 8 April 1999.1999 American Meteorological SocietyABSTRACTThis paper assesses the major impacts on human lives and the economy of the United States resulting from weatherevents attributed to El Niño 1997–98. Southern states and California were plagued by storms, whereas the northern halfof the nation experienced much above normal cold season temperatures and below normal precipitation and snowfall.Losses included 189 lives, many due to tornadoes, and the major economic losses were property and crop damagesfrom storms, loss of business by the recreation industry and by snow removal equipment/supplies manufacturers andsales firms, and government relief costs. Benefits included an estimated saving of 850 lives because of the lack of badwinter weather. Areas of major economic benefits (primarily in the nation’s northern sections) included major reduc-tions in expenditures (and costs) for natural gas and heating oil, record seasonal sales of retail products and homes, lackof spring flood damages, record construction levels, and savings in highway-based and airline transportation. Further,the nation experienced no losses from major Atlantic hurricanes. The net economic effect was surprisingly positive andless government relief was needed than in prior winters without El Niño influences. The estimated direct losses nation-ally were about $4 billion and the benefits were approximately $19 billion. The highly accurate long-range predictionsissued by the Climate Prediction Center in the summer of 1997 for the winter conditions led to some major benefits. Forexample, the predictions led California to conduct major mitigation efforts and the results suggest these led to a majorreduction in losses. Several utilities in the northern United States used the winter forecasts to alter their strategy for pur-chasing natural gas, leading to major savings to their customers.1820Vol. 80, No. 9, September 1999The resulting 1997–98 mitigative activities in Cali-fornia reduced losses and were a beneficial impact ofthe long-range predictions.The potential impacts resulting from the officialpredictions issued by the CPC of a fall–winter–earlyspring period of above normal temperatures and be-low normal precipitation for the northern sections ofthe United States were largely ignored by the media—these conditions were not seen as creating negativeimpacts and were thus of little interest. However, a fewscientists did identify some possible benefits such asfewer Atlantic hurricanes and lower energy prices inthe Northeast (Hall 1997).The role of some members of the scientific com-munity in focusing on negative, as opposed to posi-tive impacts from El Niño weather has also beenidentified as an important part of the “bad outcome”theme surrounding El Niño found in the news mediaduring 1997 (Glantz 1998). For example, a scientificreport prepared in October for the insurance industrypredicted several bad El Niño outcomes including ex-cessive flooding in the U.S. west, south, east coast, andcentral plains (Skinner et al. 1997). The director of theU.S. Geological Survey, in testimony before Congressin October, predicted more flooding and increasedwater quality problems because of El Niño but failedto recognize any positive outcomes of additional wa-ter in the arid west (Shaefer 1997). A report that re-viewed the El Niño 1997–98 winter weather conditionsand their impacts reflected the widely held perspec-tive that the winter impacts were bad as had been ex-pected. The report states, “The winter of 1997–1998was marked by a record-breaking El Niño event andunusual extremes in parts of the country. Overall, thewinter was the second warmest and seventh wettestsince 1895. Severe weather events included floodingin the southeast, an ice storm in the northeast, flood-ing in California, and tornadoes in Florida. The win-ter was dominated by an El Niño-influenced weatherpattern, with wetter than normal conditions acrossmuch of the southern third of the country and warmerthan normal conditions across much of the northerntwo-thirds of the country” (Ross et al. 1998). The re-port contained no mention of the positive outcomesfrom the winter weather conditions in the north.Even with a major, multiyear costly study, it wouldnot be possible to derive precise measures of the eco-nomic and environmental impacts of major nationwideweather conditions like those created by the El Niño-generated weather conditions in 1997–98. A recentstudy has addressed the difficulties of estimating thelosses from


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UW ATMS 211 - Impacts of 1997–98 El Niño– Generated Weather in the United States

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