Oregon Public Broadcasting

The global weather phenomenon called El Niño is making a dramatic shift to the La Niña pattern. Tom Banse reports on what that means for our weather outlook.

This past winter was classic El Niño: drier and milder than usual with below average snowpack.

Climatologists watch sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific to divine what's coming next. This summer, they've detected a rapid changeover to the opposite weather pattern called La Niña.

Washington State Climatologist Nick Bond says La Niña "stacks the deck" for the Northwest to have a snowy winter.

Nick Bond: "It will please the skiers and snowboarders, but also people who use water. That's agricultural interests of course and hydropower. It tends to be good news for salmon."

Bond says sometimes La Niña brings "too much of a good thing and there can be floods."

He expects to see the weather impacts show up around the beginning of winter and to last into 2011.

On the Web:

La Niña and the Pacific Northwest