La Niña conditions in place: NOAA

The NOAA Climate Prediction Center has announced the official return of La Niña. Agency forecasters predicted La Niña was forming nearly three weeks ago. Oceanic sea surface temperatures have met the operational definition of La Niña for the November through January period. La Niña is the periodic cooling of ocean waters in the east-central equatorial Pacific, which can impact the typical alignment of weather patterns around the globe. NOAA predicts this La Niña event will probably remain into late spring, and possibly into summer.

"In mid-January the atmosphere over the eastern North Pacific and western US began to exhibit typical La Niña characteristics in response to the cooling in the tropical central Pacific Ocean," said Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.

"This pattern will favor continued drought in parts of the South and Southwest from Arizona to Arkansas and Louisiana, and above normal precipitation in the Northwest and the Tennessee Valley area." Periodic precipitation in the drought areas and dryness in the stormy areas also are typical within the larger scale climate pattern described above.

Internationally, La Niña impacts during the Northern Hemisphere winter typically include enhanced rainfall across Indonesia and northern Australia, as well as in the Amazon Basin and in southeastern Africa and below-average rainfall across the eastern half of the equatorial Pacific and eastern equatorial Africa.

Typically, La Niña events favor increased Atlantic hurricane activity, however, Jim Laver, director of the NOAA Climate Prediction Center says, "It is too early to say with confidence what effects this La Niña event will have on the 2006 hurricane season."

La Niña events recur approximately every three to five years. The last La Niña occurred in 2000-2001 and was a relatively weak event compared to the 1998-2000 event.

•Date: 3rd Feb 2006• Region: US • Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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