User:Cocoapuffs212/La Niña
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
La Niña (/lɑːˈniːnjə/, Spanish pronunciation: [la ˈniɲa]) is a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that is the colder counterpart of El Niño, as part of the broader El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern. The name La Niña originates from Spanish, meaning "the little girl", by analogy to El Niño meaning "the little boy". In the past it was also called an anti-El Niño,[1] and El Viejo (meaning "the old man").[2]
During a La Niña period, the sea surface temperature across the eastern equatorial part of the central Pacific Ocean will be lower than normal by 3 to 5 °C (5.4 to 9 °F). An appearance of La Niña persists for at least five months. It has extensive effects on the weather across the globe, particularly in North America, even affecting the Atlantic and Pacific hurricane seasons, in which more tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin due to low wind shear and warmer sea surface temperatures, while reducing tropical cyclogenesis in the Pacific Ocean.