In a La Niña year, associated with dry and warm weather, California has been displaying elements of El Niño: snowcapped mountains and flooded coastal streets. Some scientists are searching for why the weather phenomena appear to have switched roles.
SAN DIEGO — In a La Niña year, usually associated with dry and warm weather, California has been displaying elements of El Niño: big waves, snowcapped mountains and flooded coastal streets.
Jin-Yi Yu, a University of California, Irvine, atmospheric scientist, said Tuesday that climate change may have an impact on how long each phenomenon lasts, which in the last 25 years has often been for back-to-back years. That, in turn, might affect how they shape the weather. The landmark Crystal Pier off Pacific Beach collapses under the force of surging waves during an El Niño storm in San Diego on Jan. 27, 1983.La Niña, defined by cooler-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, is in its third consecutive year, although federal researchers believe the phenomenon is ending and we're headed for a"neutral" midwinter and spring, in which neither La Niña nor El Niño rules the Eastern Pacific.
Yu, who has been watching it all unfold for years, documented the disappearance of traditional El Niño impacts after its spectacular showing in 1997, when snow fell in urban Southern California and waves were described as historic."This storm pattern in Southern California is not what we typically expect for a La Niña year," Yu said."It is more like a winter rainfall pattern we would expect in Southern California during an El Niño year.
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