La Niña Roars, Unleashing Fire, Drought and Floods Worldwide

In the American West, the drought that paved the way for 2020’s hellscape of wildfires is poised to be even worse this year. Fanning the flames: La Niña.

The weather pattern has reached the peak of its power, wreaking havoc on a world already reeling from an unprecedented string of extreme weather brought on by climate change. Characterized by a cooling of the equatorial Pacific, La Niña triggers an atmospheric reaction that roils commodities markets across the globe—parching cropland in some areas while bringing a flood of rain to others.

Palmer Drought Severity Index for November, U.S. West

PDSI:

6

4

2

0

-2

-4

Droughts are becoming more extreme

-6

1895

2020

PDSI:

6

4

2

0

-2

-4

Droughts are becoming more extreme

-6

1895

2020

PDSI:

6

4

2

0

-2

-4

Droughts are becoming more extreme

-6

1895

2020

PDSI:

6

4

2

0

-2

-4

-6

1895

2020

Palmer Drought Severity Index:

6

4

2

0

-2

-4

-6

1895

2020

PDSI:

6

4

2

0

-2

-4

Droughts are becoming more extreme

-6

1895

2020

In the U.S. West, the biggest threat is drought. Even as long-awaited rain falls this week, water scarcity plagues 78% of 11 western states, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. January should be California’s wettest month, bringing an end to fire season with frequent rain along the coast and valleys and snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. But with La Niña steering the winter away from the state, fire season now seems to be limitless. A record 4.2 million acres burned in the state in 2020, and the threat still hasn’t abated. At least a dozen blazes erupted this month as dry gusts rattled the southern half of the state.

“The impacts of La Niña should linger through spring, specifically, with conditions continuing across the drought-plagued West, unfortunately,” said Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist at The Weather Company.

La Nina has peaked as the world is already reeling from a deluge of extreme weather, including a record number of Atlantic storms, an all-time high acreage burn in California and one of the strongest typhoons ever recorded. Weather-related disasters cost the world about $210 billion in 2020, according to insurer Munich Re.

Many of those violent storms were fueled, at least in part, by global warming. Yet so far there isn’t any evidence climate change has changed La Nina, Michelle L’Heureux, a forecaster at the U.S. Climate Prediction Center said. Studies suggest it could have an impact by the end of the century.

Now, La Niña is extending the pain as it roils weather across the globe. While the southern U.S. from California to Florida is drying out, rains are flooding parts of East Asia.

“This is a hallmark of La Niña,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the U.S. Climate Prediction Center. “It is a general shift of the storm track with a wetter signal across the north and drier signal across the south.”

La Niña is part of a cycle that sees the Pacific’s surface range from warm to cool and back again every three to seven years. Known as El Nino Southern Oscillation, or ENSO among researchers and meteorologists, it sets off a series of relatively predictable reactions in global weather that often form the foundation of seasonal forecasts across the continents, as well as outlooks for the Indian monsoon, and hurricanes in the Atlantic.

Around the world, La Niña will have a wide array of impacts.

In Argentina, one of the world’s largest soy producers, dryness and heat have already hit crops, causing benchmark soybean futures to soar 49% in Chicago in the second half of 2020. The adverse conditions for central and eastern Argentina may persist through at least April, and “no significant improvements are expected through the rest of the growing season,” said Don Keeney, senior agricultural meteorologist at Maxar in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Precipitation anomalies in Argentina

Difference between precipitation from December 21, 2020–January 20, 2021 and the long-term normal

Soy growing

areas

Buenos Aires

ARGENTINA

Soy growing

areas

Buenos Aires

ARGENTINA

Soy growing

areas

Buenos Aires

ARGENTINA

Prolonged rainfalls in Vietnam’s Central Highlands region have caused early flowering of coffee trees in some areas, which may hurt the volume of the 2021-22 crop, according to Le Tien Hung, chairman of the country’s second-biggest coffee exporter Simexco DakLak.

Precipitation anomalies in Vietnam

Difference between precipitation from December 8, 2020–January 7, 2021 and the long-term normal

Hanoi

VIETNAM

Central

Highlands

Ho Chi Minh City

Hanoi

VIETNAM

Central

Highlands

Ho Chi Minh City

Hanoi

VIETNAM

Central

Highlands

Ho Chi Minh City

In Thailand, severe flooding has disrupted tapping activities in key rubber plantation areas, with an industry group forecasting that output may shrink by about 100,000 tons from these provinces, representing about 2% of Thailand’s average annual output.