El Nino and La Nina

  • “Hello, La Niña!”

    Today NOAA put out a La Niña Advisory for conditions in the eastern Pacific Ocean.  This advisory replaces the La Niña Watch that has been active on and off for the last few months.  This means that colder than normal water temperatures have been present along the equator in the eastern Pacific Ocean for long…

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  • Wired has a good and basic story about how NOAA produces La Niña watches and why they sometimes flip-flop on what they are expecting.  You can read it at https://www.wired.com/2016/10/la-ninas-not-whatever-lets-la-nina-winter/. Why Scientists Keep Changing the Forecast for a La Niña Winter

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  • The Guardian posted a story this week describing the negative impacts of recent climate extremes on wine production around the world.  Among the hardest hit areas is South America, which could particularly affect the production of malbec, a popular variety from Argentina and Chile.  South Africa is set to report a 19% fall, but the…

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  • Last month, NOAA declared that based on the most recent data, the chance of a La Niña developing was only about 40 percent, and they removed the La Niña watch that they had declared earlier this summer.  One month later, and the La Niña watch has returned with a 70% chance of occurring.  The change…

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  • In today’s somewhat surprising climate news, NOAA announced that they are canceling the La Niña watch that has been in place for several months.  While colder than normal conditions have been seen in the Eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator for a while, they have not been strong enough for long enough to constitute an…

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  • In 1992 on August 24, Hurricane Andrew made landfall just south of downtown Miami as a major hurricane, causing incredible devastation across the south Florida peninsula before it emerged into the Gulf of Mexico on its way to a second landfall in Louisiana.  My husband and I visited Miami ten months after Andrew hit and…

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  • While we’ve been watching the drought in the Southeast, many other areas of the country are also experiencing drought.  NOAA published a country-wide overview of the drought in these regions at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/drought-building-places-other-california earlier this month. NOAA also provided an update on the current neutral conditions and the likely transition into La Niña in their ENSO blog at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/august-2016-enso-update-wavy-gravy.  The…

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