Now that “Fall Day” has ushered in autumn, and we hopefully won’t see 90 degrees again until 2018, the time has come to look ahead to winter. Specifically, we want to look at the impact a potential La Niña could have on Texas. The Climate Prediction Center recently issued a La Niña watch, giving the Northern Hemisphere a 55 to 65 percent chance of experiencing cooler than average waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Let’s take a step back however, and discuss what La Niña is, and how it could influence our weather in the coming months.
La Niña (and El Niño)
El Niño and La Niña are the warming and cooling phases of water in the eastern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of equatorial South America. El Niño occurs when the water is warmer than usual, La Niña when the water is cooler than usual. The changes aren’t radical—just 0.5-4°C either way. However, that type of change, over such a wide swath of ocean, has a massive impact on the global climate. It’s a classic example of the butterfly effect. A seemingly small change in another part of the world results in big impacts everywhere else.
As of the last update, surface ocean temperatures off the coast of Peru are between 0.5°C and 3°C below normal. The longer this pattern persists, the more likely La Niña will impact the globe.
