Due to an abnormal cooling in the tropical Pacific Ocean, La Nina the climate phenomenon, is strengthening and persisting longer than anticipated. So far La Nina seems to be the cause of Tropical Storm Hermine and Tropical Storm Igor. The NOAA is speculating that La Nina gained strength in August and could potentially last till the beginning of 2011. The center stated that,“ "La Nina can contribute to increased Atlantic hurricane activity by decreasing the vertical wind shear over the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic Ocean," thus creating more tropical storms and hurricanes. La Nina has the potential to alter regular wind patterns, rainfall, and air pressure. The Tropical Storm Hermine that hit Texas, did extensive damage to the San Antonio area with severe flooding. Judging by the already busy hurricane season, we can expect that La Nina will produce many more tropical storms and hurricanes over the next few months.
I find it strange that our Earth is so sensitive that occurrences such as La Nina or El Nino can make subtle changes that vastly affect the weather. I also think it’s odd that these weather phenomena cycle periodically. I don’t really understand how over four or seven years certain things happen to trigger La Nina or El Nino that inevitably can do crazy things to the weather. I remember many years ago, there were a great deal of storms in and around Texas, where I was living, that everyone constantly blamed on El Nino. I found it very mysterious that some sort of weather occurrence in the Pacific was causing all of the extreme storms we were experiencing. Even now, it seems that El Nino and La Nina are not entirely predictable to the NOAA, as the article stated that the computer climate models didn’t totally agree on how strong La Nina will be and what it will produce. I find it interesting that amongst all of our technological advances, there are still certain things about our weather that can’t be totally predicted.
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