With El Ni\u00f1o waning, a question on the mind of a few meteorologists is whether La Ni\u00f1a will take its place. According to a release from Washington State University, the data indicate that La Ni\u00f1a is probably on its way.<\/p>\n
Sea surface temperatures are continuing to go down in the tropical Pacific Ocean, scientists say. When combined with outlooks from climate models, including those made by officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it looks increasingly likely that we\u2019re in store for a strong La Ni\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
Shifting from El Ni\u00f1o into La Ni\u00f1a is significant because of the impacts it can have on the world\u2019s weather. Instead of the weather patterns that we saw last year, La Ni\u00f1a can bring about weather that\u2019s largely the opposite of El Ni\u00f1o. So in places where there was drought, heavy rains may be on the way. And in areas that have experienced heat waves, cooler temperatures could be on the horizon.<\/p>\n
Top image:\u00a0La Ni\u00f1a from December 2007. (Credit: NASA Earth Observatory)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With El Ni\u00f1o waning, a question on the mind of a few meteorologists is whether La Ni\u00f1a will take its place. According to a release from Washington State University, the data indicate that La Ni\u00f1a is probably on its way. Sea surface temperatures are continuing to go down in the tropical Pacific Ocean, scientists say. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":25369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,7],"tags":[381,103,200,153],"class_list":["post-25372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth-atmosphere","category-news","tag-enso","tag-news-2","tag-washington-state-university","tag-weather"],"remote_post_permalink":false,"remote_post_featured_image":false,"yoast_head":"\n