BOSTON — Blizzards, droughts, floods and a surge in hurricanes may be in store as a cooling trend in the Pacific known as La Niña alters weather around the world and threatens to boost prices for heating fuels and crops.
The chance of stormier months to come for the northern U.S. may bring some volatility to the natural-gas market in the next few weeks, said Cameron Horwitz, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity in Houston.
In 1995, after one of the most active Atlantic hurricane seasons on record, La Niña combined with other weather patterns to bring about one of the snowiest winters for New York and New England, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records.
Heating-oil prices rose 14 percent and natural gas jumped 52 percent that year.
The coming winter “may get off to a really fast start, and by that I mean there may be a monster of a storm relatively early this year, if not in late November then in December,” said Joe Bastardi, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather in State College, Pa. “I mean a blockbuster near the Eastern Seaboard.”
La Niña is a cooling of the equatorial Pacific. On average, it occurs every three to five years and lasts nine to 12 months, sometimes persisting as long as two years.
Besides more snow for the East, it may mean drier conditions in Texas and Oklahoma and less snow cover across parts of the Plains, said Allen Motew, a meteorologist at QT Weather in Chicago.
La Niña’s immediate impact on the Northeast also depends on the North Atlantic Oscillation, a shift in atmospheric pressure, said Tom Downs, a meteorologist at Weather 2000 Inc. in New York. Air temperature determines whether La Niña systems produce rain or snow, Downs said, and air temperature is largely dependent on the oscillation, which can affect an area from eastern North America to western Europe.
The La Niña phenomenon is closely watched in Australia, the world’s driest inhabited continent. Australia had its wettest September on record as La Niña brought above-average rainfall to the country’s north and east. Officials in New South Wales declared the state drought-free for the first time in nine years.
