{"id":175151,"date":"2026-02-12T16:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/175151\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T16:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:04:08","slug":"as-la-nina-is-ending-signs-of-el-nino-emerge-for-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/175151\/","title":{"rendered":"As La Ni\u00f1a is ending, signs of El Ni\u00f1o emerge for California"},"content":{"rendered":"

La Ni\u00f1a<\/a>, the seasonal climate pattern that emerged<\/a> last fall<\/a>, will likely fade out soon.<\/p>\n

There is a 60% chance that the current La Ni\u00f1a conditions, which bring a cascade of global weather impacts, will end between February and April, the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center reported on Thursday.<\/p>\n

This waning La\u00a0Ni\u00f1a may not have major impacts on California’s weather during the rest of the winter.<\/p>\n

“Because this is a very weak event at this point, it’s certainly possible that other factors could overwhelm the influence of La Ni\u00f1a in California,” Nathaniel Johnson<\/a>, a meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, told SFGATE.<\/p>\n

La Ni\u00f1a is the cool phase of a pattern that brews across the tropical Pacific Ocean, called the El Ni\u00f1o-Southern Oscillation, or\u00a0ENSO. During La\u00a0Ni\u00f1a events, strong trade winds result in below-average surface temperatures in those waters, while the other phase – El Ni\u00f1o – brings weaker winds that lead to warmer ocean conditions. The pattern alternates irregularly every two to seven years.<\/p>\n

Typically, La Ni\u00f1a signals a drier-than-average winter in Southern California – but gives equal chances of a rainy, normal or parched season for much of the northern part of the state, including the Bay Area. Although the early winter’s heavy rainfall throughout California<\/a> came as somewhat of a surprise, it’s not yet clear if it’s truly been an abnormal season.<\/p>\n

“It’s still [too] soon to tell,” Michelle L’Heureux, a climate scientist at the Climate Prediction Center, wrote to SFGATE. “This is because the main influence of El\u00a0Nino\/La Nina tends to be on the January-March and February-April seasons.”<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, the latest data\u00a0shows<\/a> most of California, especially the southern part, trending toward drier and warmer weather than normal through April. After a very dry January, this week did welcome<\/a> some rain, however.<\/p>\n

“There is some precipitation ahead in the near-term forecast … but it’s too soon to know how much that will change the 3-month average that we evaluate\u00a0ENSO impacts on,” L’Heureux added.<\/p>\n

Once La Ni\u00f1a fades out, it’s probably only a matter of time before the opposite weather phenomenon of El Ni\u00f1o develops. Already, there’s an up to 60% chance that El\u00a0Ni\u00f1o will form later this summer, according to the Climate Prediction Center’s latest forecast. Although this general guideline may be outdated<\/a>, El Ni\u00f1o tends to bring wetter winter conditions to California.<\/p>\n

The method for classifying El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a is also changing. As of Feb. 1, NOAA adopted<\/a> a new index that accounts for climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More News<\/p>\n

– California skier dies at Tahoe ski resort<\/a>
– Locals outraged as court OKs\u00a0Skunk Train’s eminent domain request<\/a>
– California reports largest measles outbreak in 5 years<\/a>
– Calif. man who helped elect ‘new political star’ admits to being Chinese spy<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up for\u00a0daily SFGATE breaking news alerts here.<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally published at As La Ni\u00f1a is ending, signs of El Ni\u00f1o emerge for California<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La Ni\u00f1a, the seasonal climate pattern that emerged last fall, will likely fade out soon. There is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,83555,83553,83556,322,60,83554,1009],"class_list":["post-175151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-climate-pattern","tag-climate-prediction-center","tag-global-weather","tag-la-nina","tag-national-weather-service","tag-rainy-weather","tag-southern-california"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}