Cooler hurricane-helping La Nina to replace El Nino that adds heat to Earth
The strong El Nino weather condition that added a bit of extra heat to already record warm global temperatures is gone. It's cool flip side, La Nina, is likely to breeze in just in time for peak Atlantic hurricane season, federal meteorologists said.
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. The El Nino, while not quite a record breaker in strength, formed a year ago has been blamed, along with human-caused climate change and overall ocean warmth, for a wild 12 months of heat waves and extreme weather.
The world is now in a neutral condition when it comes to the important natural El Nino Southern Oscillation, which warps weather systems worldwide. Neutral is when weather gets closer to long-term averages or normal, something that hasn't happened as much recently as it used to, said NOAA physical scientist Michelle L'Heureux, who is the lead forecaster of the agency's ENSO team. But it likely won't ...