Researchers still need to collect temperature data throughout August to determine whether La Nina is actually forming on the equator in the Atlantic, but this summer is unusual - The Hill quoted Franz Philip Tuchen, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Ocean and Atmospheric Research Cooperation as saying.
2024 began with record-high sea surface temperatures, reaching 30 degrees Celsius, then cooling down rapidly and suddenly. Tuchen said the form was more dramatic than in any previous year.
Its almost unprecedented in the last 40 years, he said.
If Atlantic sea surface temperatures remain the same around June and July, it will officially form La Nina in the Atlantic.
Unlike the continuous La Nina patterns that have occurred in the Pacific Ocean in recent years, La Nina has not appeared in the Atlantic for more than a decade. Tuchen said the last time La Nina appeared in the Atlantic was in the summer of 2013.
A big difference between the Pacific and Atlantic La Nina is their range of impact. Tuchen explained that while La Nina in the Pacific affects global weather, including across the United States, there is a little smaller thing for La Nina in the Atlantic. They do not last long and are actually only effective in affecting the weather in the area.
A strong La Nina will impact rain in northeastern Brazil and western Africa - lands near the Atlantic equator - but not in the US.
Meanwhile, La Nina in the Pacific Ocean typically means dry, warmer-than-average conditions across the southern half of the United States, more rainfall in the Pacific Northwest and Ohio Valley, and extremely cold weather in the northern states. It can also create strong typhoons.
That type of La Nina is expected to form this fall and strengthen as the winter enters.
La Nina is expected to have a major impact on storms in the East Sea and the northwest Pacific from September onwards.
According to the Typhoon page on the Northwest Pacific, the signs of La Nina have approached in August, with the latest manifestation being that cold water in the eastern Pacific is expanding and gradually spreading more to the western Pacific.
The possibility of La Nina developing at the peak of the storm season will have a major impact on the number of tropical storms developing.
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) said that La Nina could make landfall faster. PAGASA warned that with storms near land, there will be less time to prepare.
