After a strong El Nino winter, NASA model sees return to normal

Not too hot, not too cold -- instead, water temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean should be just around normal for the rest of 2016, according to forecasts from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, or GMAO. With these neutral conditions, scientists with the modeling center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center say there is unlikely to be a La Niña event in late 2016.

Last winter saw an extremely strong El Niño event, in which warmer-than-normal water sloshed toward the eastern Pacific Ocean. Historically, some of the larger El Niño events are followed by a La Niña event, in which deep, colder-than-normal water surfaces in the eastern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of South America.

"We are consistently predicting a more neutral state, with no La Niña or El Niño later this year," said Steven Pawson, chief of the GMAO. "Our September forecast continues to show the neutral conditions that have been predicted since the spring."

As part of a research and development project, GMAO contributes experimental seasonal forecasts each month to the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) and other centers. MME produces a forecast by combining the individual forecasts of a number of participating institutions, which helps to reduce the uncertainty involved in forecasting events nine to twelve months in advance. The NMME prediction system delivers forecasts based on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) operational schedule and is used by many operational forecasters in predicting El Niño and La Niña events.