The NOAA has confirmed that the most recent La Niña phase has officially ended, and current conditions are now ENSO-neutral. This means that sea-surface temperatures (SSTs), wind patterns, and atmospheric behavior in the tropical Pacific are no longer strongly skewed toward either cooling (La Niña) or warming (El Niño).
ENSO Basics: A Global Climate Driver
- ENSO, or El Niño Southern Oscillation, is a recurring climate pattern involving changes in the temperature of waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
- It has three phases:
- El Niño: Ocean warming in the central/eastern tropical Pacific.
- La Niña: Ocean cooling in those same regions.
- ENSO-neutral: Neither warming nor cooling dominates — more stable but still influential.
- These phases shift every 3–7 years, with ocean temperatures fluctuating by 1°C to 3°C from the average.
Why This Matters
- ENSO patterns influence global rainfall, hurricanes, monsoons, droughts, and temperature extremes.
- La Niña often brings drier conditions to the U.S. Southwest, wetter weather in parts of Southeast Asia and Australia, and more Atlantic hurricanes.
- El Niño tends to have opposite effects: warmer winters in parts of North America and fewer hurricanes in the Atlantic.
- ENSO-neutral doesn’t mean calm or inactive weather — just less extreme behavior tied to ocean anomalies.
(Sources: DoE & NOAA)
