Tag Archives: La Nina

La Nina or no?

Why does it matter? If she arrives early, say mid- to late-summer, we could have another dry scorcher. Then, as she strengthens in the fall into the winter, a warmer and drier winter. Or not.

The LCRA’s Bob Rose is on board for her early arrival, along with NOAA and Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi. But Anthony Watts at WUWT has a neat nay-saying article we might cross our fingers on. Because, among other things, La Nina would bring a stronger hurricane season. Which, this year, could mean pushing much more of that Gulf crude oil much farther ashore into Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Maybe even turn it the other way and push some of it into Texas.

The girl child

The Climate Prediction Center says that old, misnamed reprobate and hurricane-pusher La Nina could be close at hand.

"Some forecast models, especially the NCEP Climate Forecast System (CFS), continue to predict a rapid transition to La Niña by July 2007. However, for the past few months the CFS forecasts have been predicting a stronger and more rapid cooling than has actually occurred. Historically, the next few months are a favorable period for the development of La Niña."

It could make for a busy hurricane season, with some storms, inevitably, rolling our way from the Gulf. 

Return to dry

March ended with almost three times the amount of rain Austin normally gets. Indeed, with almost 14 inches recorded at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport since Jan. 1, we’ve already received almost half the rain we normally get in a year. But KVUE’s chief meteorologist Mark Murray expects it all to end as the La Nina weathermaker strengthens, making April a transition month back to dry. So it looks at the weather service’s Climate Prediction Center here from now through June.