Rambunctious La Niña to Follow Docile El Niño

Overheated tropical waters in the Pacific are set to flip to a cooling phase that will say goodbye to the docile little boy called “El Niño” and prepare for his rambunctious little sister, “La Niña.”

Breitbart News reported in October that the planet was experiencing the most extreme El Niño conditions ever recorded in modern times, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Prediction Center. With the super-heated surface temperatures in sections of the equatorial Pacific Ocean rising to an all-time-high of 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, the agency predicted a strong El Niño weather pattern would last through winter and then slowly weaken in late spring.

The cyclical Pacific warming trend interrupted and partially reversed prevailing westerly trade winds that normally blow from South America to Polynesia, turn up toward Japan, and then curl along Alaska and the West Coast.

El Niño conditions in 2015 led to an exceptional season of Pacific tropical windstorms and flooding in Europe, according to the “Global Catastrophe Review – 2015” published by Guy Carpenter & Co. insurance risk consultants.

Carpenter estimates that 2015 global weather losses plummeted to just $30.5 billion versus 10-year and 5-year moving averages of around $49.7 billion and $62.6 billion, respectively. Last year’s insurance payouts also marked the lowest total catastrophic weather claims since the 2009 El Niño, and far below the record 2011 La Niña insurance losses of $126 billion.

The eastern two-thirds of the United States experienced a very mild 2015 winter. New Yorkers on Christmas Day were wearing shorts and headed to the beach in 72-degree weather, while Los Angeles surfers headed to local malls to buy sweaters in 59-degree weather.

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