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From the Sci Guy blog in the Houston Chronicle by Eric Berger in Wednesday 28 '09 online edition...
La Nina is Here -- What it Means for the United States
It may not quite be official, but La Niña, a natural cooling of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, has arrived. Here are the full details from NOAA (.pdf file).
As La Niña conditions will likely persist through at least early spring we can make some predictions about what winter conditions will be like in Texas this year.
The graphic below shows the average temperature anomaly from November through March when La Niña persists in the Pacific Ocean.
 NOAA |
As we can see, the average temperature is about 1 degree warmer for southeast Texas. Perhaps more interesting is La Niña's effect on precipitation, especially as we're already having such a dry winter.
 NOAA |
Here we can expect to be about 5 inches below our normal rainfall totals, and we seem to be on course for that. We were 1.27 inches below normal rainfall in November, 2.01 inches below in December, and we're already 2.84 inches below normal this month.
Climatologically speaking, then, we shouldn't expect relief to come any time soon.
Another big question is how long we might expect La Niña to persist, and if it will continue into hurricane season beginning June 1. Historically La Niña conditions have acted to lower wind shear values, allowing storms a greater opportunity to develop and intensify. And it's doubly bad for the Gulf of Mexico.
It's impossible to forecast conditions out that far, but scientists do have computers to make such projections. Fortunately a majority of the models project that La Niña conditions will wane by early summer.
 NOAA |
I certainly hope that is the case.
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All in all it looks like a drier and warmer repertoire for most of the southern and western US.
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/01/la_nina_is_here.html*****
Friday 30 January '09 saw the closure of three more banks - MagnetBank out of Salt Lake City, UT; Suburban Federal Savings Bank out of Crofton, MD (between DC and Annapolis near Bowie); and Ocala National Bank out of Ocala, FL - which doubles the total of banks closed in '09 already and raises the total to 31 in the last six months. With the collapse in its infancy still, the numbers of banks that will close will probably near 200 to 350 by 2011 when all is said and done.
