Ascension : Met Office Ascension Island Base - The Met Office Weather Report
Submitted by The Islander (Met Office) 03.07.2008 (Article Archived on 17.07.2008)

Statistics for the week ending Monday 30 June 2008

Well maybe, just maybe the settled weather that we should be experiencing at this time of year has finally appeared across Ascension. On the whole it’s been a lovely week, with just one or two showers mainly at night. Not quite wall to wall sunshine, but enough to keep that tan topped up.

But why has this year’s weather been a little different to the norm? One theory is that we are in a La Nina year.  La Nina (“The Girl Child”) episodes are the opposite of the more well known El Nino and refers to the extensive cooling of the central and eastern Pacific. This leads, as in El Nino to changes in the atmosphere and ocean circulation’s which in turn impact on the world’s weather. A cooler central and eastern Pacific means that sea temperatures across western Pacific are higher, which in turn means that the atmosphere has more energy and therefore the frequency of heavy rain and thunderstorms increases.

Generally La Nina will mean that those parts of the world that normally experience dry weather will be drier and those with wet weather will be wetter. The Atlantic and Pacific hurricane activity will increase and any droughts will become more severe. Typically La Nina events last up to 12 months and are considered less damaging then the stronger El Nino… but I’m certain the people across the world currently experiencing the wild and unusual weather would consider them pretty disrupting!

Just remember, next time the airbridge is delayed La Nina might be ultimately be to blame and as much as we’d like to, we in the Met Office can’t do anything about it. Don’t shoot the messenger…..