NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center announced today that the La Niña that has been holding on in the eastern Pacific Ocean has finally ended and that we are back in neutral conditions. You can read the final advisory at https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml. The forecast for ENSO is for neutral conditions to continue for the next few months before it transitions into an El Niño by late summer. However, spring forecasts are not always very reliable so climatologists will continue to monitor this to see if the expected El Niño starts to appear or if neutral conditions continue into fall.
Neutral conditions are often linked to an increased chance of late spring frosts. The very longest-range computer models are now suggesting at least two cold spells are likely by late March, around about March 15 and March 19-20. The second one is likely to be stronger than the first. Since these models are so far in the future, confidence in the exact strength and timing of these cold spells is low, but producers who are concerned about the impacts of freezing weather on their crops should be watching carefully.
If the El Niño does occur, the Atlantic tropical season is expected to be less active than the previous few years due to the presence of a strong subtropical jet stream aloft that often disrupts the development of potential storms. However, even in El Niño years, we can have devastating storms, such as Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
