By Natalie Hoidal and Madeline Wimmer el.at
The current El Niño is likely to be the strongest we've seen in our lifetimes. How can we prepare for it?
El Niño events typically get stronger through the fall and peak in the winter and often result in a warmer cold season in Minnesota. For context, the warmest winter on record in MN (2023-2024) happened during a relatively moderate El Niño. A stronger event means that we expect some stretches of notably warmer winter weather.
Although warmer conditions could mean less snow cover, it’s possible we won't actually see a drier winter, just precipitation in the form of rain; snow may not linger as long. If we look back to the last El Nino in 2023-2024, the winter was dry, but the following spring was very wet, meaning that we didn’t see lasting impacts of dry conditions in the following growing season. According to Kenny Blumenfeld, MN DNR climatologist, strong El Niño events can result in “active” weather in the following spring or summer, with six of the last seven major strong and very strong El Niño events being followed by frequent severe weather activity and/or flooding.
Although El Niño events weight the dice for these conditions to occur, don’t plan on every week this winter being warm or snow-free. Variability will still occur, but the following tips below are good practices to keep in mind for milder winters this year and beyond.
What can you do with this information?
- Use cover crops and mulch strategically: Manage your soil for precipitation swings and fluctuating snow cover. Using cover crops or mulches will be especially important for preventing erosion. Straw mulch can be used to insulate non-woody perennial crops like June-bearing strawberries.
- Pay more attention to tracking pests next year: Pests can overwinter, or emerge earlier in the season after mild winters (especially if there is a lack of extreme cold temps). Spend some time this winter making sure you have proactive integrated pest management plans to roll out early in the season. For fruit growers, keep track of growing degree days and use software like Cornell's Network for Environmental and Weather Applications (NEWA) to determine when to set traps out for pests like codling moth in apples.
- Carefully plan your planting schedule: Using succession planting, or finding other ways to be flexible in your planting schedules may help if spring weather is severe.
- Be wary of planting early next year: Every year we see farmers planting early when the weather is unseasonably warm in March and April, yet most years we still get a hard frost in May. It's great to take advantage of early warm weather with crops that can handle a later freeze (Brassicas, spinach, lettuce, etc.), but don't assume that your heat loving crops will survive if they are planted early.
Source : umn.edu