Jakarta: The 2020-2021 La Nina event has passed its peak, but impacts on temperatures, precipitation and storm patterns continue, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.
"La Nina appears to have peaked in October-November as a moderate strength event. There is a 65% likelihood that it will persist during February-April, with a 70% chance that the tropical Pacific will return to ENSO-neutral conditions by the April-June 2021 season," the United Nations (UN) agency said in a statement.
La Nina refers to the large-scale cooling of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, coupled with changes in the tropical atmospheric circulation, namely winds, pressure and rainfall.
It usually has the opposite impacts on weather and climate as El Nino, which is the warm phase of the so-called El Niño Southern Oscillation.
According to the WMO, the precipitation outlook for February-April 2021 is consistent with typical La Nina effects on regional climates.
These include increased chances of unusually wet conditions over much of Southeast Asia, Australia and northern South America and islands in Melanesia.
Large parts of Southeast Asia have seen significantly above-normal rainfall totals in the last few months.
This trend is likely to continue, particularly to the east of the region.
Meanwhile, the Islands of the Western Central Pacific, including Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Northern Cook Islands have experienced extremely dry conditions over the last few months.
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