[californiadisasters] La Niña and the Late Fall, Winter Outlook

La Niña and the Late Fall, Winter Outlook

By NWS Office San Diego Staff

Currently, La Niña is not as strong as it was in September 2010. Roughly half of the models predict La Niña to strengthen during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter. At this time, a weak or moderate strength La Niña is most likely during the winter. Across the country, temperature and precipitation impacts associated with La Niña are expected to remain relatively weak during the remainder of the early fall, and to strengthen during the late fall and winter. It is important to note that the strength of U.S. impacts is not necessarily related to the strength of La Niña across the equatorial Pacific.

During October-December 2011, there is an increased chance of above-average temperatures across the mid-section of the country. Also, above-average precipitation is favored across the Pacific Northwest, along with a higher probability for drier-than-average conditions across much of the southern tier of the country.
Even though La Niña usually portends a drier than normal season for Southern California, last season's wet La Niña reminded us that we are dealing with probabilities. Remember that last season's La Niña would have brought us below normal precipitation if we were to remove that one extremely wet week in mid December, caused by an atmospheric river, which is completely unrelated to La Niña or at least any relationship between the two is not understood. So a slight shade toward drier than normal probabilities this winter appears reasonable.

Source: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sgx/newsletter/current-newsletter.pdf

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