Clearing the backlog at the ports will take time

Jul 18, 2023

It's going to take weeks to clear the backlog of traffic that was stagged as a result of the B.C. port strike.

A lot of cargo is sitting waiting to be loaded onto vessels and moved out of the port.

CN's assistant vice president of grain, David Przednowek says the recent strike caused a number of delays for traffic flow.

"We're focused right now on implementing an orderly plan to resume our carloads and intermodal movements. So we've had a lot of traffic staged, waiting to move forward, pending a resolution and the fluidity of all of the facilities on the waterfront that were affected by the labor disruption. So, of course, there's all kinds of traffic that was stalled in the port that's got to move inland east, and we've got a bunch of traffic that's loaded that wants to move west."

He says for every day that the supply chain was shut down it will take many days to get back to normal.

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Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.