NEW DELHI: The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Thursday said that the El Nino that warms parts of the Pacific Ocean, which was formed a years ago and blamed for ocean warmth and extreme weather is gone, with a 65% probability that the La Nina weather pattern will develop during the period from July to September.
According to NOAA physical scientist Michelle L’Heureux, who leads the agency’s ENSO team, neutral conditions occur when weather patterns align more closely with long-term averages or normal, a situation that has become less frequent in recent years.However, she suggests that this neutral phase is unlikely to persist.
L’Heureux predicts a 65 per cent probability of a La Nina developing during the months of July, August, and September. La Nina, characterized by a cooling of the same regions of the Pacific Ocean, often has contrasting effects to El Nino. One of the biggest impacts of La Nina is its tendency to intensify the Atlantic hurricane season, which reaches its peak in August.
“States from Texas to Maine are making preparations for an active year,” she said. Both El Nino and La Nina create “potential hot spots” for extreme weather but in different places and of different types, she added.
“La Nina tends to, in the winter, bring drier conditions across the southern tier of the United States and if you put global warming on top of that, that could also mean those drier conditions could intensify into droughts,” L’Heureux added.
The cycle between El Nino, La Nina, and a neutral phase usually lasts between two and seven years. These patterns can have significant impacts on farmers worldwide, as they can lead to wildfires, tropical cyclones, floods, and prolonged droughts.
Bill Weatherburn, a senior climate and commodities economist at Capital Economics, said that geographically concentrated crops are more vulnerable to price increases during adverse weather conditions. However, global wheat and corn prices are less likely to be affected by La Nina or El Nino.
Other agencies, including the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Japan’s weather bureau, have also observed the end of the El Nino phenomenon and predicted the formation of La Nina this year.
According to AccuWeather’s lead international forecaster Jason Nicholls, For India, the transition from El Nino to La Nina is likely to bring a wetter monsoon, however another phenomenon called the Indian Oscillation Dipole (IOD) can influence rainfall intensity.
A positive IOD event leads to a wetter summer monsoon, while a negative IOD event results in drier conditions, he added.
El Nino and La Nina are two opposing climate patterns that occur in the Pacific Ocean. El Nino is defined as “a natural warming of eastern and central Pacific Ocean surface temperatures.” The Earth’s climate is currently in a neutral state in terms of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a phenomenon that influences weather patterns globally.
(With inputs from agencies)