{"id":5682,"date":"2012-02-09T16:19:21","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T22:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=5682"},"modified":"2012-02-12T19:27:09","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T01:27:09","slug":"mark-your-calendars-for-la-ninas-farewell-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/02\/09\/mark-your-calendars-for-la-ninas-farewell-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Your Calendars For La Ni\u00f1a’s Farewell Party"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Jeff Heimsath\/KUT News<\/p>

A dock sits on the dried up bed of the Pedernales River in Travis County, Texas.<\/p><\/div>\n

Stop me if you’ve heard this question before: When will the drought end?<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s truly too soon to say, but there are some indicators that one of the main culprits, La Ni\u00f1a, is going to be leaving us soon.<\/p>\n

What is La Ni\u00f1a?<\/a> It’s\u00a0a weather pattern where the surface temperatures are cooler in the Pacific, which creates\u00a0drier, warmer weather in the southern U.S<\/a>. (You may also know her counterpart, El Ni\u00f1o, which generally has the opposite effect.) La Ni\u00f1a\u00a0sticks around for a year, sometimes longer, and tends to return once every few years. (The last La Ni\u00f1a\u00a0was in 2007, but it was a much lighter one.)<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service says today<\/a> that a “majority of models predict La Ni\u00f1a to weaken through the rest of the Northern Hemisphere winter 2011-12, and then to dissipate during the spring 2012.” This jibes with previous forecasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But there’s a catch.<\/p>\n

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