How does La Nina affect climate in the West?
To a first approximation, it appears that the consequences of La Nina are nearly the opposite of El Nino in much of the U.S., including the West. In the previous discussion of El Nino effects, simply substituting the opposite words yields an approximately correct description. Exceptions to La Nina / El Nino Opposition 1. The La Nina climate signal in the West seems more reliable than the El Nino signal. This is especially true in the Southwest. El Nino generally brings wet weather there in winter, but there are a number of exceptions. La Nina brings dry winters to the Southwest, and there are no exceptions, during the past 65 years. That is, La Nina brings much more consistent consequences in the Southwest. In the Pacific Northwest, this appears to be not as true. La Nina generally brings cold, snowy, wet, active winters to the northern Cascades and the northern Rockies. There are a few exceptions to this picture among La Nina years. There appear, however, to be more such exceptions in
