Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology says one of the strongest El Niño weather patterns in history is over, and it gives a 50-percent chance that a La Niña pattern will be upon us by the end of this year, reports the Financial Times. La Niña “typically brings cooler and wetter conditions in the Pacific and more storms in Europe and the United States.”
The waning of El Niño “should relieve drought-stricken areas in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa, where temperatures have been higher than normal,” said the FT. In Africa, crop losses stretch from the southern end of the continent to the Red Sea. The weather pattern was blamed as a factor in 2015 becoming the hottest year on record.
In the United States, the NOAA said El Niño was weakening as water temperatures decline across the equatorial Pacific. “La Niña is favored to develop during the Northern Hemisphere summer 2016, with a 75 percent chance of La Niña during the fall and winter 2016-17.”
For June through August, the NOAA forecasts above-normal precipitation in the central Plains and western Corn Belt, with above-average temperatures on the West Coast and east of the Mississippi River.