April 3, 2008

Blame Wild Spring Weather on La Niña

Are you seeing snow on baseball's opening day at your local stadium? Or perhaps freezing rain and snow in the evening after a long day of mild weather? La Niña may be to blame. La Niña is a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon similar to El Niño. During a period of La Niña, the sea surface temperature across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean will be lower than normal by 0.5 °C. This can cause all kinds of odd more winter like weather in the Spring - especially in the Pacific Northwest.

La Niña causes mostly the opposite effects of El Niño, for example, El Niño would cause a wet period in the Midwestern U.S., while La Niña would typically cause a dry period in this area. It's not clear that we're in a period of La Niña, but we can at least see the results of what appears to be weather very much in tune with La Niña.

Via KING5.com and La Niña Wiki