El Nino forms and exists in the Pacific Ocean, which is a half a world away from New England, so how can its effect on global weather patterns impact homeowners in New England? Adam shares what he is seeing.
Narrator: It's time once again for the Crackman podcast, hosted by A1 Foundation Crack Repair. I'm Darren Kincaid and I'm here with the crack daddy himself, Adam Tracy. Adam has 20 years of experience in the construction industry and as a civil engineer is A1 Foundation's resident engineer on staff solving a plethora of unique foundation problems every day. This podcast provides expert basement waterproofing, concrete repair and preventative maintenance tips for homeowners and businesses. A1 Foundation's valuable insight will help avert the disaster of a flooded basement, health problems to water infiltration, and protect your biggest investment, your home. The topic of today's podcast: How has El Nino's global weather impacts affected homeowners in the New England area?
Narrator: Mm, that sounds pretty interesting, Adam. So, you know, El Nino forms and exists in the Pacific Ocean, which is half a world away from New England. So, how can its effect on global weather patterns impact homeowners in New England?
Adam: Yeah, this is an interesting topic because, well, one, our world is very complex and now we're about to enter in a super El Nino phase, which is gearing up to be one of the strongest ones on record.
Now, what does that mean, who cares? It's just a whole bunch of meteorology, techno jargon. But what happens in very simple form is that the Pacific Ocean heats up to a much higher amount than it typically would, and it causes global impacts because of how large the Pacific Ocean actually is.
It controls a lot of the weather impacts across the United States. So, even something that is half the world away actually has some major impacts for the New England area.
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and southern New Hampshire and also Connecticut, they're being impacted tremendously. Now, well, not so worried about the West Coast and the droughts that they're going to experience and as tragic as that is going to be, what is a bigger issue is what happens to our homes and our basements in this environment.
All projections for this particular El Nino show that we're going to be in a wetter, warmer period from basically starting in mid-July through the end of the year and potentially beyond, depending on how long this El Nino lasts.
And we're already starting to see the impacts of this. We had a tremendously dry period for an extended period of time where we're in severe drought from basically 2023 through the June of this year, where each month, month after month, we had below-level precipitation levels, causing poor ground saturation of water, drought conditions.
Every municipality has restrictions on watering grasses around here. But now, the switch has flipped and you're starting to see a more wet pattern.
And what does that mean for homeowners? Well, those cracks never leaked. A comment that we got forever on home sales and before you finish your basements, well, now they're going to start leaking and we're already seeing it.
We've had several rainstorms week after week after week pouring inches of rain into the soil, all in New York at 10 inches of rain about two weeks ago or a week and a half ago.
So as that ground supersaturates, all the hydrostatic pressure from the ground is actually going to start working its way into the foundation.
So, if you had a leak four or five years ago, it's been fine ever since because it just stopped leaking, now it's probably going to be an issue.
So keep an eye on your basements, keep an eye on all the sump pumps that are installed in there. Make sure they're functional because we're about to hit a very wet pattern here.
And if you're not prepared, or if you think everything is fine and you don't have to worry about anything, you're probably going to be wrong. And unfortunately, it's going to involve shock backing your basement, cutting out drywall if it's finished, and spending some money on some repairs.
So if you have some issues, if you thought you had issues in the past, if you're concerned about issues in the future, now is the time because the ground is going to be super wet, it's going to be exposing foundation cracks, and then as we creep into the wintertime frame and as that freeze happened, all of the subsequent damage to the foundation is going to occur.
So, be proactive, understand that the weather pattern is officially on the change now, we are about to enter a wet period, and get those basements fixed so you can keep your basement dry.
Narrator: Thanks for explaining how El Nino's effect on global weather directly impacts homeowners in the New England area.
Narrator: If you have a basement water problem and think you need a professional, or if you'd like more information on foundation crack repair and basement waterproofing topics, please visit a1foundationcrackrepair.com or call Adam at (866) 929-3171, or you can email Adam at info@a1foundationcrackrepair.com. Thanks for listening and keep that basement dry.