The strong El Niño weather phenomenon, which added a little more heat to already record-breaking global temperatures, has disappeared. Its cold counterpart, La Niña, is likely to arrive just in time for peak Atlantic hurricane season, according to federal forecasters.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Thursday declared the death of the El Niño phenomenon, which is warming parts of the central Pacific. El Niño, although not record-breaking in strength, formed a year ago and has been blamed, along with human-caused climate change and general ocean warming, for about 12 months of heat waves and extreme weather conditions. .
The world is now in a neutral situation with respect to the important natural oscillation of El Niño/Southern Oscillation, which disrupts weather systems around the world. Neutral is when the weather is approaching long-term averages or normal, something that hasn’t happened as much lately as it used to, said Michelle L’Heureux, a NOAA physical scientist who is the lead forecaster for the agency’s ENSO team. But it probably won’t last, she added.
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He said there is a 65% chance that La Niña, a cooling of the same parts of the Pacific that often has opposite effects, will form in the period of July, August and September. One of the biggest effects of La Niña is that it tends to make the Atlantic hurricane season more active, and that storm season is at its peak in August.
“The likelihood of a La Niña, coupled with record sea surface temperatures, is why the National Hurricane Center is predicting an extraordinary hurricane season,” said North Carolina State Climatologist Kathie Dello. . “States from Texas to Maine are making preparations for an active year.”
Both El Niño and La Niña create “potential hotspots” of extreme weather events, but in different places and of different types, L’Heureux explained.
“In winter, La Niña tends to cause drier conditions in the southern United States, and if global warming is added to the mix, those drier conditions could intensify into droughts,” L’Heureux explained.
