We have been waiting for La Niña for months, but NOAA believes that this enormous climate impasse is over. Now it’s time to prepare

El Niño disappeared before summer and, since then, we have been waiting. To the surprise of the experts, the truth. We said it three months ago: all the agencies were wondering where La Niña has gone.

We have been in a huge climate impasse for half a year. But, according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, this wait seems to be coming to an end.

Neutrality in the Pacific. During the month of November, ENSO-Neutral conditions continued with fluctuations within the usual averages of this phase. However, signs of change are beginning to accumulate: La Niña is likely to come into our lives in the weeks remaining until January 2025 (59% probability).

However, that is not the most interesting thing: the same models indicate that it is very likely that ENSO will return to neutral conditions between March and May 2025 (61% probability). That is, they are predicting a very weak and brief La Niña.

What does all this imply? Many things, really. A priori, a weak phenomenon is good news. After all, the catalog of ‘teleconnections’ and impact on the planet caused by La Niña is enormous.

Droughts occur in the Horn of Africa and in the southern part of South America, on the one hand. On the other hand, above-average rainfall increases in Southeast Asia and Western Oceania. In Mexico, rainfall tends to decrease in the north and center of the country, while rainfall increases on the Pacific slope, the southern Gulf of Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula.

In Europe, its impact is less because “the climate is more affected by other meteorological factors”; but in Spain it does have some clear effect: as AEMET has been explaining, “one can begin to think that La Niña is what causes this very dry and persistent pattern” in the country. That is, in the short term, a small event is good news after the years we have had.

However, it puts the question about El Niño on the table. Because, as we know, El Niño is worse. Not only because of its impact on specific areas of the planet, but because its planetary heating effect hits the system completely.

Obviously, right now we don’t know what is going to happen. It is possible that a decaffeinated El Niño awaits us, but it is time to prepare for a future that is increasingly unstable and difficult to predict.

Image | NOAA

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