Weather Reality Check: What a La Niña looks like...in pictures

The wacky conspiracy theorists at WUWT think that every nation who watches and warns about ENSO events, so that farmers and fishers can plan ahead, are hiding reality from deniers. They seem to think that it helps weather reporting agencies maintain the "climate hoax" conspiracy to say there's probably not going to be a La Niña this year after all, so that when the temperature plunges to new lows just short of an ice age in a few weeks (as deniers seem to think) ...well, I don't know what conspiracy theorists think the weather bureaux will do then ...

Seaice sums it up nicely:

What I do not understand bout WUWT is that they deny things that need to maintain their story. When the Godzilla El Nino was predicted they were denying that the coming El Nino was exceptional, yet when temperatures rose they relied on an exceptional El Nino to explain the temperatures. This is similar. They need the La Nina to fail in order to explain the lack of cooling that will presumably happen. I can see it now - temperatures did not fall because there was no La Nina like there was in 1999. It appears to be just a knee jerk rejection of anything that scientists say about the climate. 

Victor Venema says it well, too:

Even if you see lizard people everywhere and are gullible enough to know there is a global conspiracy in a natural science over decades, why the hell would anyone try to make this La Nina smaller? El Nino is just noise on a long-term trend.

If they would want to start their "hiatus" nonsense all over again, they should be thrilled that the start of their 2016 hiatus is warm. They would need La Nina's at the end of their "hiatus", now they need warmth. 

Anyway, a picture can save a thousand words, so two pictures can save two thousand :)

Here's the weekly sea surface mapped by the Bureau of Meteorology at the end of August this year:

Here's the sea surface on the same week in the 2010-12 La Niña - the last week in August of the first year of that La Niña:

If you need a hint - compare the pattern of blue and red and neutral colours across the middle of the images horizontally, the equatorial Pacific!

For more - see how Bob Tisdale, one of WUWT's denier pseudo-scientists and supposed "expert" reports the situation - with the blessing of the ignoramus-in-chief Anthony Watts.

A strong-ish El Niño does not usually lead immediately to a La Niña

Check out some of the articles below. I've demonstrated in two of them how, since 1950, strong and moderate to strong El Niños more often than not are NOT immediately followed by a La Niña (of any strength). Again, a couple of pictures from an earlier article might help. The first is all the very strong, strong, and strong to moderate El Niño years since 1950 carried through to the following months. The charts show the sea surface temperature in the NINO3.4 region updated to August 16 (data here):

This next one takes just the three El Ninos from the seven above (not including 2015/16) that were followed by a La Nina:

For a more detailed discussion of ENSO, see the first article below. There's also a very good leaflet produced by BoM.

From the HotWhopper archives

• Gobbling up or Spitting Out Bob Tisdale's ENSO Leftovers at WUWT - January 2014, probably the most detailed discussion of ENSO here at HotWhopper, if you want to learn what it is.
• Losing his grip on ENSO: Bob Tisdale thinks he's an expert, and yet... - September 2016
• La Niña or no, nada? - June 2016, long article showing BoM was more cautious in its La Niña prediction than was NOAA (and deniers)
• El Niño to La Niña years - May 2016, comparing the years where a medium or strong El Niño was immediately followed by a La Niña. It happens in fewer than half the cases.
• Anthony Watts sticks his neck out and predicts La Niña - March 2016, also showing that strong El Niño's more often than not are not immediately followed by a La Niña.