El Niño’s chances of replacing milder La Niña are shrinking
By Brian K. Sullivan | Bloomberg
The odds that a weather-roiling El Nino will replace the lingering La Nina phenomenon across the Northern Hemisphere this summer are slipping.
There’s a 39% chance that El Nino — a warming of the Pacific Ocean that can shut down the Atlantic hurricane season — will arrive between June and August, according to the US Climate Prediction Center. That’s down from 40% a month ago.
El Ninos are known to spark heavy rains and flooding across California as storm paths are pushed further south across North America. The phenomenon is also noted for bringing droughts across parts of Southeast Asia and India, impacting coffee and other crops. A powerful El Nino in 1997-1998 was blamed for causing $100 billion in damages and losses, along with deaths of 30,000 people around the world.
Meanwhile, there’s a 73% chance La Nina will fade between February and April, bringing an end to the third consecutive such pattern in as many years. If La Nina exits, temperatures in the Pacific will normalize ahead of a possible warming that would trigger an El Nino.
Conditions across the Pacific “do not support an imminent transition,” the agency said. “Uncertainty remains high.”
Predictions that call for changes to the larger pattern and those that extend through March to May tend to be less accurate.
La Nina still holds sway across the Pacific and has been blamed for less snow for the large cities of the eastern US, as well as dry conditions across the crop areas of Brazil and Argentina. The phenomenon usually also means a continuation of drought in California, however other weather patterns this year have bucked that trend, leaving the state drenched with flooding rain.
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