SunsetCliffsMocos
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Dakar 2016 and El Nino
With so much hype (real or not) about this year’s El Nino, I ‘ve really been wondering how weather would affect this year’s race. I did a little homework and thought I’d put together something for us all.
Cut me some slack guys, I have no expertise on this subject but I think many of you will find this interesting. I’ve cobbled together this from Wiki and some surf forecasting experts …
What is an El Nino?
El Niño is defined by prolonged warming in the Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures when compared with the average value. In Spanish, the capitalized term "El Niño" refers to the Child Jesus, so named because the pool of warm water in the Pacific near South America is often at its warmest around Christmas.
Who and where does it affect?
While we surfers here in California typically think of El Nino events in terms of how many good swells we will get(larger and more frequent), an El Nino is in fact a global event. With an increase in news coverage and the internet, we see what appears to be way more coverage here in SoCal than we did during our 1997 and 2005 El Ninos. We see the fisheries all over the Pacific affected, and odd weather like increased temperatures in places like Alaska and other spots.
In the above image warmer water temps are represented in red… this image compares a real solid El Nino event we got in 1997 to this years Ocean Surface Temps.
It is a certainty that this El Nino will affect the Dakar and the weather patterns in South America, the question for me is to what extent.
According to Wiki,
Because El Niño's warm pool feeds thunderstorms above, it creates increased rainfall across the east-central and eastern Pacific Ocean, including several portions of the South American west coast. The effects of El Niño in South America are direct and stronger than in North America. An El Niño is associated with warm and very wet weather months in April–October along the coasts of northern Peru and Ecuador, causing major flooding whenever the event is strong or extreme.[20] The effects during the months of February, March, and April may become critical.
Southern Brazil and northern Argentina also experience wetter than normal conditions, but mainly during the spring and early summer. Central Chile receives a mild winter with large rainfall, and the Peruvian-Bolivian Altiplano is sometimes exposed to unusual winter snowfall events. Drier and hotter weather occurs in parts of the Amazon River Basin, Colombia, and Central America.
What does it mean for Dakar?
Very possibly more rain, and what rain does come has the potential to be thumping, causing some degree of flooding and flash flooding. This may result in closing or postponing stages as we saw in Stage 1.
I speculate that Chile and Peru pulled out of Dakar this year in large part due to weather concerns of El Nino, so the "flavor" of the race will be different than in years past.
The 2wd vs. 4wd approach will be interesting to see play out. Will 4wd and smaller tires be superior in mud and water crossings? Or will the Baja style 2wd monsters have better clearance and a greater ability to hydroplane over water crossings and charge through muddy sections?
Will the bikes and handlebars even be able to race some of these stages or will the ASO have to make major changes to their stages?
Will we see snow on stages?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out...
With so much hype (real or not) about this year’s El Nino, I ‘ve really been wondering how weather would affect this year’s race. I did a little homework and thought I’d put together something for us all.
Cut me some slack guys, I have no expertise on this subject but I think many of you will find this interesting. I’ve cobbled together this from Wiki and some surf forecasting experts …
What is an El Nino?
El Niño is defined by prolonged warming in the Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures when compared with the average value. In Spanish, the capitalized term "El Niño" refers to the Child Jesus, so named because the pool of warm water in the Pacific near South America is often at its warmest around Christmas.
Who and where does it affect?
While we surfers here in California typically think of El Nino events in terms of how many good swells we will get(larger and more frequent), an El Nino is in fact a global event. With an increase in news coverage and the internet, we see what appears to be way more coverage here in SoCal than we did during our 1997 and 2005 El Ninos. We see the fisheries all over the Pacific affected, and odd weather like increased temperatures in places like Alaska and other spots.
In the above image warmer water temps are represented in red… this image compares a real solid El Nino event we got in 1997 to this years Ocean Surface Temps.
It is a certainty that this El Nino will affect the Dakar and the weather patterns in South America, the question for me is to what extent.
According to Wiki,
Because El Niño's warm pool feeds thunderstorms above, it creates increased rainfall across the east-central and eastern Pacific Ocean, including several portions of the South American west coast. The effects of El Niño in South America are direct and stronger than in North America. An El Niño is associated with warm and very wet weather months in April–October along the coasts of northern Peru and Ecuador, causing major flooding whenever the event is strong or extreme.[20] The effects during the months of February, March, and April may become critical.
Southern Brazil and northern Argentina also experience wetter than normal conditions, but mainly during the spring and early summer. Central Chile receives a mild winter with large rainfall, and the Peruvian-Bolivian Altiplano is sometimes exposed to unusual winter snowfall events. Drier and hotter weather occurs in parts of the Amazon River Basin, Colombia, and Central America.
What does it mean for Dakar?
Very possibly more rain, and what rain does come has the potential to be thumping, causing some degree of flooding and flash flooding. This may result in closing or postponing stages as we saw in Stage 1.
I speculate that Chile and Peru pulled out of Dakar this year in large part due to weather concerns of El Nino, so the "flavor" of the race will be different than in years past.
The 2wd vs. 4wd approach will be interesting to see play out. Will 4wd and smaller tires be superior in mud and water crossings? Or will the Baja style 2wd monsters have better clearance and a greater ability to hydroplane over water crossings and charge through muddy sections?
Will the bikes and handlebars even be able to race some of these stages or will the ASO have to make major changes to their stages?
Will we see snow on stages?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out...
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