Move aside La Niña – it’s almost time for El Niño to take over.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center issued an “El Niño watch” Thursday morning, saying the climate pattern is expected to form sooner than previously anticipated.
A major key to shaping weather patterns worldwide is found in the tropical Pacific Ocean, far from any mainland. Known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, this climate phenomenon is the pattern that can create significant differences in average ocean temperatures and often plays a pivotal role in how global weather patterns unfold.
The term La Niña may be one that casual weather observers as well as aficionados hear meteorologists using from time to time, especially when breaking down long-term weather trends or providing a sneak peek at conditions expected during an upcoming winter or hurricane season. But, what exactly is La Niña? Let’s take an in-depth look.
The key to how winter in the United States may unfold often lies thousands of miles away in the open waters of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. It’s there where the roots of a climatological phenomenon known as La Niña originate and eventually help shape weather patterns worldwide.
Extreme weather will surely have its own chapter in the turbulent history of 2020. The human and economic toll of Covid-19 was already enormous this fall, when it became clear that 2020 was on track to break the previous record for big weather disasters, fueled in part by climate change. From the derecho that battered the Midwest with hurricane-force winds to unprecedented wildfires that scorched more than 700,000 acres in Colorado and gave California its worst fire season in history, weather and climate events like these represented only a few line items in the latest tally of the nation’s billion-dollar disasters.
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