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Alex Kinsella’s head is always in the clouds.
The postdoctoral investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution studies “air-sea interaction,” or how the wind, ocean, and atmosphere combine to create the weather patterns we see out the window.
That means when he looks up at the sky, he sees a little more than shapes.
“They’re a surprisingly serious topic,” Kinsella said. “Clouds are kind of whimsical and fun, but they also really do control everything about the Earth’s weather and climate.”
Much of Kinsella’s work revolves around the ENSO, or El Niño Southern Oscillation, which he calls the “sloshing of warm water across the Pacific.” This summer marks the start of an El Niño year, when tropical Pacific waters are warmer than normal.
Fewer tropical storms and hurricanes typically form over the Atlantic in an El Niño year. But Kinsella and emergency management experts still warn coastal residents to have a plan in case of an emergency. Bracing for heat waves, tropical storms, and other extreme weather events, utility company Eversource has also unveiled a new training center in Wareham built specifically for emergency preparedness.
“Hurricane Bob took place in an El Niño year,” Kinsella said.
ENSO is just one of the global atmospheric phenomena that impacts the East Coast, although it is more consequential for the Pacific and Gulf Coasts than it is for the Atlantic. ENSO alternates between El Niño and La Niña years, with La Niña years observing the exact opposite weather patterns as El Niño: a La Niña year tends to bring greater and more frequent tropical storms in the Atlantic.
Kinsella explained that during an El Niño year, the wind shear across the Atlantic tends to be more powerful, breaking up big storms before they make their way towards the U.S. coastline.
“For our purposes in New England, if we’re thinking about tropical cyclones, they’re developing in the tropical Atlantic and then potentially moving up the coast,” Kinsella said. “El Niño is affecting them by preventing a lot of them from getting to the strength they otherwise would before they can get out of the tropics.”
Francis Tarasiewicz, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Boston office, added that El Niño years tend to spell warmer, more humid summers for New England.
Whatever the year, however, both Kinsella and Tarasiewicz cautioned that hurricanes and tropical storms are still a very real possibility in the summer months. Hurricane Bob, a category 3 hurricane, made landfall in 1991 during an El Niño year, causing approximately $680 million in damage across Southern New England. The official hurricane season begins in June and ends in November, with peak activity occurring in August and September.
“It only takes one storm to make a season,” Tarasiewicz said. “It’s been decades since New England has been hit with a hurricane, so it wouldn’t hurt for folks to be prepared.”
Although climate change has been proven to increase heavy rainfall events, drought, and flooding, scientists are still determining the extent that climate change impacts the frequency and magnitude of hurricanes, Kinsella said.
Still, those in energy resilience and emergency preparedness aren’t taking any chances. The City of New Bedford updated its storm preparedness plan last year, with Mayor Jon Mitchell noting that New England, which has historically experienced its hurricanes few and far between, should expect storms to make landfall more often in the coming decades.
On June 15, utility company Eversource unveiled a new emergency training center in Wareham, the first of its kind on the South Coast. The center will double as an emergency response hub and staging center during extreme weather events and outages.
“This facility is about much more than training,” Eversource’s president of Massachusetts electric operations, Doug Foley, said in a statement. “It’s about making sure we’re ready for whatever comes next. Every skill practiced here, every scenario simulated and every lesson learned helps improve our response, improve safety and build a more resilient electric system for the communities we serve.”
Coastal residents can prepare for hurricanes and tropical storms by making an evacuation plan and understanding their evacuation zone. For those planning to shelter in place, residents should prepare an emergency kit with bottled water, food, flashlight, radio and extra batteries, a first aid kit, sanitation items and clothing. Kits can also include medication, eyeglasses, pet supplies, and other items as needed. For full emergency guidance and information on hurricane preparedness, visit the city’s Emergency Management web page.
Kinsella added, however, that the fear of hurricanes shouldn’t stop beachgoers or other residents from enjoying the outdoors. He himself decided on his area of study after watching a tropical cyclone off the coast of the Arabian Sea from a distance, observing the tower of dark clouds give way to a crown of iridescent ones.
“I didn’t know clouds could do that,” Kinsella said. “I’m always encouraging people to look up at the clouds. They’re really important for Earth’s climate, for the weather, obviously, and they’re also just really beautiful.”
Email Brooke Kushwaha at bkushwaha@newbedfordlight.org.
