11/09/2020
La Niña, the cooler sibling of El Niño, has arrived.
And it could provide an additional boost to the already active Atlantic hurricane season, forecasters said, as well as extend the disastrous fire season in the West.
The La Niña climate pattern – a natural cycle marked by cooler-than-average ocean water in the central Pacific Ocean – is one of the main drivers of weather in the U.S. and around the world, especially during the late fall, winter and early spring.
Federal government forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced La Niña's formation Thursday. NOAA said this year's La Niña (translated from Spanish as “little girl”) is likely to persist through the winter. It's the opposite pattern of El Niño (little boy), which features warmer-than-average ocean water.
“La Niña can contribute to an increase in Atlantic hurricane activity by weakening the wind shear over the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic Basin, which enables storms to develop and intensify,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
“The potential for La Niña development was factored into our updated Atlantic hurricane season outlook issued in August,” he added.
In that outlook, forecasters predicted that as many as 25 storms could form in the Atlantic. Already, 17 have formed, including Hurricane Laura, which ravaged portions of southwestern Louisiana in August.
As for its impact on the western fires, La Niña tends to bring dry weather across portions of California and much of the Southwest. “We’re already in a bad position, and La Niña puts us in a situation where fire-weather conditions persist into November and possibly even December,” Ryan Truchelut, president of Weather Tiger LLC, told Bloomberg News. “It is exacerbating existing heat and drought issues.”
La Niña could provide an additional boost to the already active Atlantic hurricane season, as well as extend the disastrous fire season in the West.