La Niña is over and Earth entered the neutral zone

La Niña did not stay long. After just a few months, La Niña conditions decreased and the East Tropical Pacific has entered a neura enso phase that is expected to continue in the northern hemisphere until summer. But what does it really mean?

The girl and the boy These are the two main phases of the southern El Niño/oscillation (enso) – an alternating standard of sea surface temperature and atmospheric changes in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

According to the El Niño is the hot phase of a climate standardmarked by sea surface temperatures, above average in the eastern Pacific Tropical Ocean. In turn, the La Niña is the cold phase, with temperatures below average.

Although these phases have origin in the Pacific, its influence extends globally, Molding the weather and climatic patterns, such as temperature changes, precipitation, hurricanes and tornado activity.

The earth oscillates between these two phases in an irregular cycle, usually every two to seven years, with a “neutral” phase in the middle.

This last phase La Niña was very brief, just like (NOAA) predicted at the end of last year. In December 2024, a La Niña cooled in the Tropical Pacific, but temperatures on the surface of the East Pacific rose in such a way that the enso is considered a neutral phase: Not hot enough for El Niño, nor cold enough for La Niña.

“We can say with confidence that La Niña conditions ended“It reads in the NOAA Enso Block.“ After just a few months of La Niña conditions, the Pacific Tropical is now neutral in terms of enso and meteorologists expect neutrality to stay during the summer of the northern hemisphere. Neutrality is also the most likely state to the fall (more than 50% of hypotheses), ”he added.

Although the world is currently at a neutral phase, Iit does not mean that time will be calm or typical. In fact, the forecast becomes more difficult during the neutral periods of the Enso because there is no strong influence from El Niño or La Niña, which have well-known effects on global atmospheric circulation.

“Os Meteorologists like to have an El Niño and a la niña because they can provide useful information many months in advance. In the absence of one and a la niña, the predictable signs are weakerwhich does not mean that there are no other standards that are influenced our time and climate (there are immense), but It is more difficult to predict them months in advance“Explained the NOAA in 2017.

So, apReview for the coming months will be difficult for meteorologists. Without a clear sign of the enso where they can be supported, meteorologists will have to deepen their data to find out what is about to come.