SOUTHLAND – (INT) – The latest 3-year run of El Nino is about over and the return of La Nina is on deck.

The team at the Climate Prediction Center favors La Niña to emerge sometime during the summer. That’s based on cooling below-average subsurface Pacific Ocean temperatures and changes in the tropical atmospheric circulation. There is a 65 percent chance La Nina will develop this summer and an 85 percent chance it will persist into the coming winter.

That usually signals a drier than usual winter for California. The past two rainfall years have been wetter than usual.

The fading El Nino eventually became one of the strongest on record. It influenced the world during its lifetime. Most notably, El Niño helped push both air and ocean temperatures to record levels globally. Every month from June 2023 to May 2024 was the world’s hottest such month on record.

Story Date: July 14, 2024