Climate troublemaker La Niña will play a starring role in the United States' winter weather, federal forecasters from the Climate Prediction Center said Thursday, Nov. 13.
"La Niña continued over the past month, as indicated by the strengthening of below-average sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean," the prediction center said in a statement.
La Niña is a part of a natural climate cycle officially known as El Niño-Southern Oscillation, what scientists call ENSO. The cycle swings between warmer and cooler seawater in a region along the equator in the tropical Pacific Ocean. La Niña is marked by cooler-than-average ocean water in the region.
Those subtle changes can have big ripple effects across the globe's climate, with the cycle at times increasing the chances for rain, drought, hurricanes and other chaos. The effects vary drastically by region, even within the United States.
Although on the weak side, federal forecasters still say this La Niña will be the primary driver of winter weather in the United States.
