“La Niña is Back: What You Need to Know About the Climate Pattern Shift”

The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center has officially declared the end of the El Niño climate pattern that has been affecting the Eastern Pacific since June 2023. The warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures associated with El Niño have now given way to neutral conditions. However, forecasters are predicting the development of La Niña, the cooler counterpart of El Niño, which is expected to persist throughout the winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there is a 65% chance that La Niña will arrive between July and September and an 85% chance that it will last until January 2025. La Niña brings cooler ocean temperatures to the Pacific, which can have implications for weather patterns around the world.

La Niña conditions are particularly conducive to Atlantic hurricanes, with NOAA already predicting an 85% chance of an above-normal hurricane season. The agency has forecasted between 17 and 25 named storms for the season, the largest number ever predicted by this point in the year. La Niña enhances Atlantic hurricane activity by reducing vertical wind shear in the tropics, which can lead to stronger storms.

After the hurricane season, La Niña is expected to influence winter weather across the U.S. NOAA explains that La Niña triggers changes in tropical rainfall and wind patterns, affecting the path of mid-latitude jet streams. This can result in warmer-than-average temperatures in the southern U.S. and cooler-than-average temperatures in the northern U.S.

It’s important to note that while La Niña and El Niño are natural climate patterns, they are occurring within the broader context of human-induced climate change. The World Meteorological Organization has highlighted that the past nine years have been the warmest on record, with 2023 being the hottest year ever recorded. Climate change continues to make weather patterns more extreme worldwide.

Overall, La Niña is part of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, a natural climate pattern that alternates between warm and cool phases every two to seven years. Forecasters can officially declare a La Niña event based on sea surface temperatures and atmospheric responses. The name “La Niña” was given to the opposite phase of El Niño by scientists in the 1980s, following the tradition of naming these phenomena after the Christmastime observations of South American fishermen.