La Niña remains missing in action, Australian forecasters all but write it off

La Niña and the drenching rains it typically brings to southern Africa remains elusive and it increasingly looks like it may not emerge at all this summer.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said on Tuesday in its fortnightly “Climate Driver update” that it did not see La Niña over the next three months.

“The Bureau’s model suggests SSTs (surface sea temperatures) are likely to remain within the ENSO-neutral thresholds throughout the forecast period to February 2025," it said.

The upshot is that the global climate dance known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is expected to remain “neutral” for the next few months – in between La Niña and El Niño. The latter caused a devastating drought last summer across southern Africa.

La Niña is triggered by a cooling of SSTs in the tropical parts of the central and eastern Pacific. The Australian forecasters have concluded that temperatures there are not going to fall into a La Niña range.

“Ocean temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific have started to warm in recent weeks, away from the La Niña threshold,” the BOM said.

El Niño is caused by a warming of those waters, but no global forecaster has predicted its return anytime soon – at least not yet. 

Of concern is the record-high levels that surface temperatures have been reaching – no surprise as 2024 looks set to be the hottest year on record.

“Global SSTs remain at near record levels as at Sunday, 24 November, with temperatures since July falling just short of the record temperatures observed during 2023, yet above all other years since observations began in 1854,” the Australian weather service said. 

During La Niña years, the pool of warm oceanic waters shifts westward. Rainfall increases over Indonesia and the western Pacific region and decreases over the east-central and eastern Pacific Ocean. The climate is drier and colder off the coast of America. (Photo: iStock)