Key Points
The shift from El Nio to La Nia will see temperatures drop, but when one weather system swings to the other, summers tend to be hotter than averagemeaning 2024 could be even warmer and wilder than last year...
The driving forces behind these projections include the alternating Pacific Ocean climate patterns known as El Nio and La Nia, which can create huge shifts in temperature and precipitation across the North and South American continents..
During an El Nio, shifting trade winds allow a thick layer of warm surface water to form in the Pacific Ocean, which, in turn, transfers a huge amount of heat into the atmosphere..
But during La Nia, cooler temperatures in the Pacific Ocean weaken high-altitude winds in the Atlantic that would normally break up storms, allowing hurricanes to more readily form...
While the National Interagency Fire Center expects lower-than-average odds of a big blaze in California this year, in part due to El Nio bringing unusually high rainfall to the state, other places may not be so lucky..
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