La Niña, the cooler sibling of El Niño, has ended just three months after it arrived, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed Thursday. The brief and weak climate pattern, which emerged in January much later than expected, has now transitioned Earth back into a neutral El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phase.
This neutral state — typically the calmest of the three ENSO phases — is expected to persist through most, if not all, of 2025. That means one of the key global climate drivers will remain inactive, making long-range weather predictions more complex without its usual push on weather patterns.
La Niña, marked by cooler-than-normal waters in the central Pacific, usually fuels more Atlantic hurricanes and drier conditions in the southern and western U.S., while increasing rainfall in Indonesia, northern Australia, and southern Africa. Though shorter-lived this time, La Niñas are often costlier than El Niños or neutral periods, according to climate studies.
The latest event follows an unusually prolonged three-year La Niña that ended in 2023 — a rarity in recent climate history.
Source: Swifteradio.com
