He La Niña climate phenomenon has finally appeared, but the periodic cooling of the waters of the Pacific Ocean is weak and is unlikely to cause as many weather problems as usual, forecasters reported Thursday.
La Niña, the counterpoint to the better-known El Niño, is an irregular rise of unusually cold water in a key part of the central equatorial Pacific that changes weather patterns around the world.
The last El Niño was declared over last June, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) They have been waiting for La Niña for months. Its late arrival may have been influenced by the fact that the world’s oceans have been much warmer in recent years, said Michelle L’Heureux, head of NOAA’s El Niño team.
“It’s not at all clear why this La Niña has taken so long to form, and I have no doubt that it will be a topic of much research,” L’Heureux said.
In USALa Niña tends to cause drier weather in the South and West. It tends to make the climate wetter in parts of Indonesia, northern Australia and the south of AfricaL’Heureux added. They typically bring more Atlantic hurricanes in the summer months, but L’Heureux predicted that this time they will have dissipated by summer.
El Niño often leads to wetter weather in the United States and tends to increase temperatures globally, while La Niña has the opposite effect. Studies have found that La Niña droughts have been more costly than climate extremes linked to El Niño.
The last La Niña ended in 2023 after an unusual three-year period.