NOAA reports "La Niña" is developing

Scientists with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, in today’s release of its monthly El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion, say that La Niña is on its way. “While we can’t officially call it a La Niña yet, we expect that this pattern will continue to develop during the next three months, meeting the NOAA definition for a La Niña event later this year,” said Mike Halpert, acting deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md. La Niña refers to the periodic cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific that occur every three to five years. NOAA declares the onset of a La Niña event when the three-month average sea-surface temperature departure exceeds -0.5 degrees Celsius (-0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) in the east-central equatorial Pacific.