El Niño is gone and another La Niña may form
Randy Mann.
JAKE PARRISH/Press
El Niño was declared officially over by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) last week, one of the main forecasters who monitor sea-surface temperatures. The last El Niño event lasted only seven months, which was also one the strongest and shortest ones in recorded history. As I’ve stated in previous columns, an El Niño is the abnormal warming of sea-surface temperatures in the south-central Pacific Ocean.
Ocean temperatures near the West Coast of South America, one of the indicators for the trend of sea-surface temperatures, have recently turned cooler than normal. However, water temperatures are still above average along the equatorial regions. According to the BOM, conditions in this part of the Pacific Ocean have now returned to “neutral,” or as we often refer to as a “La Nada.”
Another key indicator to determine El Niño and the cooler La Niña events is the differences in air pressure between Darwin and Tahiti. During El Niño conditions, the average air pressure in Darwin is higher than in Tahiti.
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