El Niño fades; La Niña is next

[pscot]

with implications for the Atlantic tropical storm season.

El Niño rapidly weakened during late April and early May, with sea surface temperatures over the tropical Eastern Pacific in the area 5°N - 5°S, 120°W - 170°W, also called the "Niña 3.4 region", falling a significant 0.65°C in just one month. Temperatures in the region are now in the "neutral" range, just 0.18°C above average, and well below the 0.5°C threshold to be considered an El Niño, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The speed of the collapse of El Niño makes it likely that a La Niña event is on its way this summer. This is what happened during the last strong El Niño event, in 1998--El Niño collapsed dramatically in May, and a strong La Niña event developed by hurricane season. Six of the sixteen El Niño models (updated as of April 15) are predicting La Niña conditions for hurricane season, and I expect more models will jump on the La Niña bandwagon when the May data updates later this week. The demise of El Niño, coupled with sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic that are currently at record levels, have prompted two major hurricane forecasting groups (tropicalstormrisk.com and Colorado State University) to predict a significantly above average 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. Over the full 160-year period we have records of Atlantic hurricanes, La Niña years have typically had more hurricanes, and more strong hurricanes, compared to neutral years. However, since 1995, there hasn't been any difference between neutral and La Niña years in terms of hurricane activity. La Niña conditions typically cause cool and wet conditions over the Caribbean in summer, but do not have much of an impact on U.S. temperatures or precipitation.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

[JDPriestly]

1. Actually, this could mean drought in Southern California.

La Nina does affect the weather in California.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/La-Nina-Could-Make-A-Comeback-93618899.html

Bad news for us. The article is wrong. This does have implications for parts of the U.S.

[rurallib]

2. hasn't southern Cal been in drought for about 5 years?

[JDPriestly]

4. 2009-2010 Winter was pretty good.

We got some rain. And I talked to the Department of Water and Power recently. The service representatives said that the snow caps look good, so there should be water this year. We are still under a water rationing schedule. I will be so happy if that is lifted this summer.

[pscot]

3. The article was about the effect of LaNiña

on the Atlantic hurricane season. There was nothing said or implied about California's weather, though it's generally accepted that ENSO fluctuations have profound effects on weather all across both North and South America. I guess if you want rain, you'll just have to move to Miami.
:P

[JDPriestly]

5. The last sentence of the part that was excerpted stated

that La Nina does not have much effect in the U.S. That is not true. It strongly affects Southern California.

"La Niña conditions typically cause cool and wet conditions over the Caribbean in summer, but do not have much of an impact on U.S. temperatures or precipitation."

The weather patterns that El Nino and La Nina produce do not just affect the eastern part of the U.S. And, just for the record, we here in California are a part of the U.S. so when an article talks about effects in the U.S., it necessarily deals with effects in Southern Califoria. If the article had stuck to the Caribbean, I would not have commented.

It's not that I'm off topic. It's that you are defining the topic very narrowly. The article makes a broad statement about the U.S. It didn't have to.



We here in Southern California feel the differences more strongly than just about anywhere else.

[Odin2005]

6. La Nina = Wet Summer here.