What Exactly Is La Nina?

Sometimes people labor under the delusion that La Nina is a completely different weather phenomenon than El Nino. In truth, El Nino refers to fluctuations in the temperature of the central tropical Pacific Ocean. But when you start to differentiate between El Nino and La Nina, you see that El Nino is more specifically raised temperatures, while La Nina deals with lower temperatures. When La Nina occurs, it has vastly different effects since the ocean has a temperature that is vastly different than its usual temperature. Here are some of the ways that La Nina affects the climates around the world.

If you have read about the way that El Nino can alter parts of the environment, you can obtain the effects of La Nina by simply reversing them. Water in the Eastern Pacific becomes very cold, and this is what causes the most effects. One of the most unpleasant results is an increase in hurricanes around the time that La Nina shows up. The contrast in temperatures between two regions very close to each other creates a much higher probability for hurricanes and tropical storms forming. This is why many sailors don’t exactly look forward to when La Nina happens.

La Nina also causes warmer weather in some regions, as a result of the colder weather in the Pacific region. It has been recorded that during La Nina, temperatures during the winter in some areas were as much as 15 degrees over the average from the previous years. This is one of the most drastic changes that La Nina can perform, and comes as quite a shock to people in the affected regions that don’t know it is coming.

Many specific wind patterns are relied upon to be fairly constant throughout the years. However, when La Nina occurs many of them shift. They may go so far as to reverse directions, but usually the most drastic result is a shift in one direction. La Nina causes many different issues, and these are just a few of them. Once you start understanding how the chain reactions of weather work, you will understand why La Nina is an important part of how the world works and how one thing can change into another.