The Resiliency Company and the Nicholas Institute are co-hosting a webinar with the publication's authors on October 2nd, at 12pm ET, to go deeper into the case studies and design features across all six states.
El Niño Is a Stress Test for America’s Infrastructure. It Can Show Us Where to Invest Next.
Predictions about El Niño have been hard to miss in the headlines. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center puts the odds above 90% that this winter’s event will become “very strong,” and the odds at 75% that its strength between October and December will exceed every event on record since 1950.
El Niño is a natural phenomenon in which above-average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean disrupt normal weather patterns. It arrives every two to seven years. A "very strong" version is rarer, reaching that threshold only three times since 1950. Each El Niño’s impact is hard to predict, but a “very strong” El Niño will produce greater variations and instability throughout the U.S. It could have the following regional impacts:
California: Wetter, stormier winter, with higher flood risk and potential for substantial mountain snow.
Pacific Northwest: Generally warmer, with parts of the inland Northwest possibly drier.
Mountain West: The Southwest and southern Rockies lean wetter, while the northern Rockies lean warmer and, in places, drier.
Midwest: Generally warmer, especially in the northern Plains and Upper Midwest.
Southeast: Considerably wetter with more rain, raising flood risk throughout the Southeast. However, a strong El Niño might contribute to fewer Atlantic hurricanes.
Northeast: Generally warmer, with wetter conditions favored along the Atlantic coast.
As this year’s El Niño ramps up, California is buckling down for severe storms and coastal flooding; the state just declared a state of emergency in anticipation of El Niño’s arrival. As Mark Merrifield of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography put it in a recent Guardian article: A strong El Niño “gives us a bit of a stress test of what the state [of California] is likely to experience with future climate change.”
A stress test can be valuable. El Niño will hit each region differently, but expose similar underlying challenges: Much of the infrastructure needed to manage climate risk is easier to fund after a disaster than before one.
That makes the months ahead useful for two kinds of preparation: preventative maintenance to reduce the effects of this year’s El Niño, and infrastructure modernization to plan for the next time a strong El Niño comes around.
Quick Fixes Are Possible, and Many Are Already Underway
With only a few months before El Niño storms hit, large-scale infrastructure updates to improve stormwater capacity and management aren’t possible. But there’s plenty of preventative maintenance that can be done in the short term.
In California, that work is already underway. Los Angeles County crews are clearing sediment and boulders from debris basins—work that restores flood-storage capacity lost to years of sediment accumulation. They’re paying close attention to the Palisades and Eaton burn scars, where U.S. Geological Survey modeling found a 60% to 80% chance of intense-storm debris flows, a type of landslide that can occur after fires have burned through the vegetation that held soil in place. San Diego plans to clear 20 miles of storm channels and is raising public awareness about flood insurance.
This kind of work doesn't require a new bond measure, a multiyear design process, or a new piece of infrastructure. But maintenance shouldn't be where the preparation ends. If this winter reveals places where stormwater systems are undersized, or flood defenses are already operating close to their limits, those failures can become a to-do list for future infrastructure improvement projects and repairs.
Use This El Niño to Prepare for the Next
As ocean temperatures warm, stronger El Niños may become more likely. Research on the eastern Pacific's faster warming suggests extreme El Niño events that arrived once every 20 years last century could now arrive nearly twice as often.
If infrastructure appears vulnerable as this El Niño looms, it’s a good reason to examine exactly where the cracks are. San Diego, for example, says it has $3.3 billion of stormwater improvements to make, with four dams still needing safety repairs. Those projects can’t be completed in time for this winter, but the approaching storms can make their importance more tangible for policymakers.
Meanwhile, California is capturing more stormwater and storing it for dry periods. In a Politico article, Karla Nemeth, former director of the California Department of Water Resources, describes El Niño as a test of the state's ability to capture water. “I think we are as ready as we can be, but [there's] more work to be done to get that water saved for a drought.”
For local officials, the most valuable preparation for this El Niño season may be financial as well as physical: knowing what a range of storm scenarios would cost and how much their city or state budget can absorb. The RiskReserves Tool, developed by the Government Finance Officers Association and The Resiliency Company, provides that view, enabling local officials to make the case for investments in resilience before the next storm hits.
Climate Adaptation Policy Needs an Economic Foundation | Resources.org | Climate adaptation remains underfunded despite rising disaster costs, and economists could help design policies that make resilience investments more effective. This analysis examines the market failures that can discourage adaptation.
Climate Risk Analytics Market | Fortune Business Insights | Fortune Business Insights projects the global climate risk analytics market will grow from $2.1 billion in 2026 to $7.7 billion by 2034, as banks, insurers, asset managers, governments, and companies seek more granular ways to price physical and transition risks. Fragmented data, inconsistent methodologies, and uncertainty in climate models can still be obstacles to turning risk maps into reliable financial decisions.
Read more about resilient public infrastructure and government solutions on The Epicenter here.
Real Estate & Construction
Flood Insurance Lapse Could Disrupt Home Sales | Legis1 | The National Flood Insurance Program is woven into the machinery of the real estate market. With nearly 4.5 million policies and $1.3 trillion in coverage, a lapse could disrupt mortgage lending and property transactions, as happened during previous funding gaps. A Congressional Research Service review finds that past lapses delayed or canceled thousands of home closings.
California Sets Standards for Homes Tainted by Wildfire Smoke | The New York Times | New California laws create statewide standards for testing and remediating wildfire smoke contamination, while requiring insurers to cover qualifying testing, cleanup, and restoration and continue additional living-expense payments until homes are deemed safe.
The Open Houses at the Edge of Disaster | HEATED | Miami’s climate risk is increasingly visible in the data. How does it appear in the real-estate sales pitch? Emily Atkin toured nine properties in flood-prone areas and found agents minimizing risks that climate models rate as severe or extreme. One agent was more candid: Protecting an eight-figure waterfront home could mean “really expensive insurance.”
Read more about resilient real estate on The Epicenter here.
The Chart of the Week
There have been three “very strong” El Niño weather patterns since 1950. This year’s will be the fourth.
Have thoughts to share or want to add your voice to the conversation? Reach out!
The Epicenter helps decision-makers understand climate risks and discover viable resilience solutions. The Epicenter is an affiliated publication of The Resiliency Company, a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to inspiring and empowering humanity to adapt to the accelerating challenges of the next 100+ years.
