‘Moderate to strong’ La Niña weather event develops in the Pacific

Credit: concernusa.org

Even the normally alarmist BBC has to admit that ‘a La Niña event normally exerts a cooling influence on the world’. Add in a deep solar minimum and things could get interesting, with varying regional effects.
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A moderate to strong La Niña weather event has developed in the Pacific Ocean, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The naturally occurring phenomenon results in the large scale cooling of ocean surface temperature, says BBC News.

This La Niña, which is set to last through the first quarter of 2021, will likely have a cooling effect on global temperatures.

But it won’t prevent 2020 from being one of the warmest years on record.

La Niña is described as one of the three phases of the weather occurrence known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

This includes the warm phase called El Niño, the cooler La Niña and a neutral phase.

A La Niña develops when strong winds blow the warm surface waters of the Pacific away from South America and towards Indonesia.

In their place, colder waters from deep in the ocean come up to the surface.

This event leads to significant weather changes in different parts of the world.

If a really strong La Niña event were to occur, research suggests that the UK and Northern Europe might experience a very wet winter.

Normally La Niña means countries like Indonesia and Australia can get much more rain than usual, and a more active monsoon occurs in southeast Asia.

There are likely to be more storms in Canada and the northern US, often leading to snowy conditions.

Southern US states can be hit by drought at the same time.

The last time that a strong event developed was in 2010-2011.

The WMO says there is a now around a 90% chance of tropical Pacific sea temperatures remaining at La Niña levels for the rest of this year.

There is a 55% chance of the conditions persisting through the first quarter of next year.

While a La Niña event normally exerts a cooling influence on the world, this is unlikely to make too much of a difference to 2020.

Full article here.