La Nina Gets Wild

Process of La Nina, credit: Wikipedia

National Geographic has covered a story that reports the Pacific weather phenomenon El Nino and La Nina are expected to be twice as frequent as they have been in the past. The article claims La Nina will occur every 13 years, rather than every 23, and El Nino every 10 years, rather than every 20. This means the Pacific regions, Australia, East Asia, the North and South Americas, should prepare for extreme weather shifts, such as drought and flooding, among other things.

During an El Nino, winds that push warm water west start to weaker, and that warm water, normally flowing toward Indonesia, and now with storms accumulating over it, gets pushed toward the Americas. Therefore, should an El Nino be expected, we should be prepared for its effects (high rain and coastal storms, etc.). In a La Nina, the opposite happens and the trade winds pick up, miving warm water and rain toward the Pacific west and leaving the Pacific east in drought--meaning SoCal gets super dry. In addition, the article discusses how global warming is not only increasing the frequency of these weather patterns, but it affect the intensity of them. La Nina is expected to get "nasty".

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/01/150126-extreme-weather-nina-nino-climate-warming-science-environment/