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An Update on La Nina

Sep 2, 2010; 1:44 PM ET

A quick post today. Many eyes today are turned to Hurricane Earl as it churns north up the Eastern Seaboard passing just offshore of North Carolina tonight and just offshore of southeastern New England tomorrow night.

There continues to be a moderately strong to strong La Nina going on with average sea surface temperature anomalies of 1.5 degrees Celsius below normal in the equatorial region of the Pacific. However, there are some areas even colder than that.

A look at temperature anomalies around the world also shows typical conditions of a good La Nina. Much warmer-than-normal temperatures in the southwest and west Pacific to the Indian Ocean and much warmer temperatures in the Atlantic Basin as well.

This all comes as no surprise to me, and the fact that models show these conditions growing a bit more and staying strong through the coming winter is also consistent with what I have been saying for over a month.

So my prediction, and the prediction of the long-range forecasters at AccuWeather.com, still looks right on with a much stormier winter coming up in the Northwest and northern Rockies and much drier, warmer-than-normal weather in the Southwest. I will have a more detailed winter outlook in late September or early October.

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com

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About This Blog

Ken Clark
Ken Clark's Western U.S. weather blog tackles daily weather events with commentary from one of the most experienced and trusted Western U.S. weather experts.

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