NEW YORK - A La Nina weather anomaly may be forming in the equatorial Pacific, but a fog of unpredictability enshrouds when it may strike and how strong it might be, according to the Climate Prediction Center of the US National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
In its monthly update issued Thursday, the center said "atmospheric and oceanic conditions are consistent with a trend towards a Pacific cold (La Nina) episode."
The formation of La Nina could lead to more storms in the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, forecasters say.
The weather anomaly could occur between May and July of this year.
However, the latest computer models "indicate considerable uncertainty as to when La Nina might develop and how strong it might be," according to the CPC.
La Nina is less famous than El Nino, during which waters in the Pacific turn abnormally warm.
That warming could wreak havoc in the weather across the Asia-Pacific region, causing flooding in Peru and Ecuador in South America and withering drought in Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
El Nino also spurs stronger wind shear in the Atlantic basin. This greatly hindered storm formation in 2006 when only 10 occurred, sharply lower than the record 28 storms of the year before which included monsters like hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.
La Nina has the opposite effect, and US government and private forecasters said it may cause a higher-than-normal number of hurricanes. Most predictions pegged the number of storms this year at 17.
El Nino means literally "little boy" in Spanish. The name was used by Latin American anchovy fishermen in the 19th century who first noticed the anomaly because it usually peaked during Christmas.
The last La Nina occurred from 1998 to 2001, leading to drought across much of the western United States.
The CPC forecast is available on: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html
Story by Rene Pastor
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
