Every winter, Russia waits for the cold and then goes after Ukraine’s power plants. This year, one of the strongest El Niño events on record may get in the way. NOAA expects a strong to very strong El Niño through early next year, possibly the strongest since its records began in 1950.
Europe’s Copernicus climate service and Ukraine’s own national weather service both lean toward a milder-than-normal Ukrainian winter, roughly 1 to 2°C warmer than average. That matters because temperature drives electricity demand. Last January, at minus 16°C, Ukraine could produce about 11 gigawatts against 18 gigawatts of demand, while a milder winter the year before cut peak demand by about 1.5 gigawatts on its own.
But there’s a catch. Russia doesn’t need three months of Siberian cold. It needs a handful of bitter days to time its biggest strikes, and El Niño can still set off sudden late-winter cold snaps. In this video I explain how a warm patch of the Pacific reaches Ukraine, why the signal gets fuzzy over Eastern Europe, how Russia builds the weather into its targeting, and how Ukraine could use about a week of warning to turn General Frost against Moscow.
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Source: Wes O'Donnell
