Could we see a La Niña and El Niño in the same year?
Randy Mann.
JAKE PARRISH/Press
A new La Niña was declared by forecasters at the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) in October and by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology several weeks ago. Sea-surface temperatures near the West Coast of South America and along the equatorial regions have been cooler than normal over the last six weeks as La Niña conditions were indicated by the CPC in September and October. Despite the recent declaration of this phenomenon, forecasters are predicting that this new La Niña is expected to be weak and only persist through the first two to three months of 2026.
The latest sea-surface temperature charts do show a stretch of cooler-than-normal sea-surface temperatures along the equatorial regions. However, there is a region of warmer-than-normal sea-surface temperatures along the immediate coastline of the West Coast of South America. This is an area that is watched very closely as the warming and cooling in this region can determine whether we will have a future La Niña or El Niño.
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