El Nino and La Nina
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NOAA and NASA released separate reports today on the 2016 global climate. Both agencies using separate methods determined that 2016 was the warmest year on record, beating out last year’s record. The warmth included most of the globe with a few small areas of cooler temperatures. The NOAA report can be found at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/global/201612 and the…
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Those of us who watch the tropics for signs of El Niño or La Niña have noted that the recent weak La Niña seems to be dissipating pretty quickly. What will come next? Some of the models that have just come out are predicting a return to El Niño, and this set social media abuzz.…
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NOAA released their January 2017 update for ENSO (the oscillation that is the combination of El Niño and La Niña) this week. It shows that weak La Niña conditions still remain in the eastern Pacific, but that they are expected to go back to neutral conditions within two months. Even though it will be technically…
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The latest ENSO blog post from NOAA’s Climate.gov provides an excellent discussion of how La Niña causes shifts in temperature and precipitation across the Southeast and other regions of the US and other countries. It describes the shifts in the jet stream associated with the pool of colder-than-normal ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean…
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While cold conditions have come and gone across a lot of the continental US, southern Florida has largely bypassed the frigid conditions and is experiencing record high temperatures. In fact, according to Brian McNoldy in the Capital Weather Gang, “35 percent of all of our December heat-related records have been set in the past two years,…
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The Inertia published a news story this week describing a detailed new video of the oceanic and atmospheric circulation in the Pacific Ocean in El Niño and La Niña conditions. Most of you already know that both El Niño and La Niña affect the climate here in the Southeast, especially in winter. If you have…
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NOAA released their latest update on the current La Niña today. It indicates that La Niña is still occurring in the eastern Pacific Ocean but that it is likely to last for only a few months before going back into neutral conditions. The chance of an El Niño for next winter also seems to be…