La Niña conditions are weakening and a shift to an El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) neutral weather pattern is expected to develop in April and persist through the Northern Hemisphere summer, a U.S. government weather forecaster said on Thursday.
Why it matters: ENSO neutral conditions reduce the likelihood of extreme flooding or drought for Canadian farmers
La Niña is a phenomenon which is part of the larger El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climatic cycle involving water temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean.
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Prairie forecast: Potential to turn cool and wet
For this forecast period we are starting off with a large area of high pressure over Ontario and an equally large area of low pressure over the Yukon. The clockwise flow around the Ontario high, combined with the counterclockwise flow around the Yukon low, is creating a widespread southerly flow across the Prairies. This should lead to one more day of warm temperatures across the western Prairies and a couple more days over the eastern half.
While La Niña causes cooler-than-average temperatures, raising chances of both floods and droughts, thereby affecting crops, ENSO neutral means that the water temperature remains near the average level and crop yields may be more stable.
“La Niña is over for now, as we are officially in a neutral status and sea surface anomalies in the central Pacific are right at zero. With that said, there will likely be dryness in the central and southern Plains for at least the next month or so, which will impact winter wheat growth,” said Donald Keeney, senior agricultural meteorologist at Maxar.
“Also, we do anticipate some dryness developing in central Brazil in May and June, which will stress safrinha corn. There will likely be continued drier conditions in eastern Europe, Ukraine, and western Russia through June, and will impact both winter wheat as well as early growth of corn and sunflowers,” Keeney added.
Earlier this week, Japan’s weather bureau said that conditions similar to the La Niña phenomenon are starting to weaken.
The bureau added that it estimates a 60 per cent chance of normal weather patterns continuing towards the Northern Hemisphere summer.
“The forecast team concurs and predicts ENSO-neutral … with a 62 per cent chance in June-August 2025 … and chances greater than 50 per cent through July-September 2025,” the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) said in its monthly forecast.
— Reporting by Brijesh Patel and Ishaan Arora in Bengaluru
