Goodbye La Niña: NOAA declares its official end

The triple-dip La Niña, which began in 2020, has finally come to a close.

NOAA declared an official end to the weather phenomenon on Thursday 9th March, with signals of the equatorial Pacific warming up.

This particular La Niña was a long-lasting one spanning three years, through three winter seasons.

In a La Niña phase, water temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean are at least 0.5 of a degree Celsius below average over three months.

Unusually strong, eastward-moving trade winds and ocean currents bring this cold water to the surface, known as upwelling.

While a seemingly minor change in temperatures, it can have much larger-scale impacts on global weather patterns, such as enhanced rainfall in northern and eastern Australia, which has led to catastrophic flooding recently.

Meanwhile in the US, it can lead to an above-average number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic basin, with conditions becoming more conducive for development.

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) is now forecasting neutral conditions in the coming months, into the early summer.