Stubborn La Niña persists

Geneva, 10 June 2022 – There is a high probability that the ongoing protracted La Niña event, which has affected temperature and precipitation patterns and exacerbated drought and flooding in different parts of the world, will continue until at least August and possibly to the northern hemisphere fall and start of winter. This is according to a new Update from the World Meteorological Organization.

Some long-lead predictions even suggest that it might persist into 2023. If so, it would only be the third “triple-dip La Niña” (three consecutive northern hemisphere winters of La Niña conditions) since 1950, according to WMO.

La Niña refers to the large-scale cooling of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, coupled with changes in the tropical atmospheric circulation, namely winds, pressure and rainfall. It usually has the opposite impacts on and as El Niño, which is the warm phase of the so-called El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

read more https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/stubborn-la-niña-persists