My colleague in bloggery,
Jack Elliott, recently forwarded to me
a story in Science Daily headlined: "Evidence suggests La Nina will return."
La Nina (Spanish for "The Bitch") is a weather pattern that pushes the jet stream northward, which makes the Southwest hotter and drier than normal and the Northwest and Pacific Coast colder and wetter than normal. La Nina was blamed for the record-breaking suckiness of the spring and early summer experienced by Washington, Oregon and Northern California this year.
And now The Bitch is getting ready to return. At any rate that's what the scientists at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center say.
"In July, the CPC issued a La Niña Watch, indicating favorable conditions for the development of another La Niña event in the next six months," the Science Daily story reports. "With colder-than-average waters once again upwelling in the tropical Pacific Ocean, La Niña appears to be re-forming.
"'Temperatures below the sea surface have decreased quite markedly in the last few months,' said David Unger, meteorologist at the CPC.
"In addition, he said, the Climate Forecast System model -- a state-of-the-art climate model that integrates interactions between Earth's oceans, land, and atmosphere -- has been impressive in its prediction capabilities in the last few years and has been increasingly more confident in the development of a La Niña this winter."
This news only confirms my determination to make the coming winter the last one I spend in Bend, Oregon.
And I'm already thinking about booking a place in Palm Springs for March, April and May, when the interminable Bend winter really starts to induce thoughts of murder and mayhem.
