I am afraid it bring even more warm and dry weather to the region for the rest of the winter? that is scary, no much hopes for the fall garden as well :-( I pray almighty to change his decision and bring some precipitation and cooler weather. -Chandra

Were. I thought La Nina was supposed to end this summer. Of course, it seems like the weather has gotten stranger and stranger since about 1997 or so.
Anybody remember the early 1980s heat and drought? I lived in CO so I don't remember it, have just seen a lot of record high temps in AZ set back then.

I know were about to break a record for the number of days over 100 in a row. Saw something on the news about it last night. I think 5 or 6 more days over 100 and we will break the record. Which will definitely happen. I cant remember a summer this dry in a long long time. Here in NE OK, I dont think its as bad as 2006, YET....but it looks like its getting there....

Lisa, Last week or maybe the week before, I read something on the NOAA website that was the first hint I'd seen that the current neutral period may not last long and that there was one tiny clue that another La Nina might be looming. It is not entirely unprecedented. I wouldn't panic yet. La Nina generally does mean drier than average and warmer than average weather for us, but many other factors are involved and we just have to wait and see how or if they all come together. Even if a La Nina pattern returns, La Nina can give us different degrees of hotter/drier weather, and certainly not all of them are as severe as what we've had this year. Still, I was rooting for an El Nino, although it seems unlikely we'll see a return to El Nino conditions this year.

Chandra, At the present time I am not planning on much for fall. Maybe nothing at all. It depends on whether it rains or not. We just aren't getting rain here and it is too hot for irrigation to do a lot of good.

Tracy, Technically La Nina ended it the spring and we are back in a neutral period. However, there are hints another La Nina may be developing. I'll try and find and link the NOAA article that I read that mentioned this.

Erod, Down here, we broke the record for consecutive 100-degree and higher days either yesterday or the day before, and our forecast for the next 7 days features highs of 102-105, so I guess the streak will continue to grow. Last week, I would have said this year seems most like 2003 or 2006, but that's without doing any specific research. I think it has been like a blend of the two---with the heat of 2003 for our area and the dryness from 2006. Someone mentioned this year was most like 1998 for them, and I think that is likely for my area as well---but we didn't live here then. We just came up on weekends working to clear and fence the land before the builder started building the house in Aug. 1998. I do remember it was both very hot and very dry and I need to look back at the statistics and see what 1998 was like in our county. It was hot, dry and filled with grasshoppers in Texas.

I measure all hot summers against 1980 as I experienced it in Fort Worth, and don't think this one will be as hot as that one, but it may be drier.

At 10:30 a.m. it was 90 here with a heat index of 96. It sure seems early in the day for it to feel that hot. I am so 'over' summer and just hanging in there waiting for fall and some hopefully-more-moderate weather.

OK, y'all, I went and found the most recent ENSO Diagnostic discussion, which is likely the one I read a couple of weeks ago when it just had been issued. It is linked below. Note in the second paragraph where they seem to be hinting that the neutral period may last at least through fall, but that perhaps La Nina is returning all the same....maybe in the winter months.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: NOAA ENSO Diagnostic Discussion

Oh geez. I might get to break in my new snow chains. I guess I had better find me a new snow blower too. Just thinking about it almost gives me chills in this relentless heat.

Over the last 4 years I haven't noticed any difference between a La Nina and an El Nino. So not expecting any big changes either way till Mother Nature puts us back in her travel plans. Jay

Here in Texas La Nina only means dry, dry, dry. This is so disheartening but this feeds into what my husband was saying about the weather guys that still follow the sun cycles and they say we are headed into a "cooling" Phase over the next 30 years because of a solar barrycenter shift causes a Wobble in the sun's course that causes cooling, but here's the trick, the cooling causes a La nina to be more dominant over El nino, so that means hot dry summers for the likes of us in Oklahoma and Texas. This cycle of this wobble is a 180 (approx.) year long. Also there is a compounded effect of the Solar minima happening too.This is new science that was discounted by global warming people because it did not fit in their computer model but now is being taken very seriously by the science community. Just because that I can tell you about it doesn't mean I understand it. But I just love it when academics get a good argument going and this issue is really shaking up the climate world. Ithe IPPCU is popping their corks as prominent scientist are questioning what was dogma before. Keep your minds open.

I can't seem to pull up the article where it talks about the La nina dominance. Sorry. I can't stay at this long.

Here is a link that might be useful: New solar wobble