Rare 'Triple-Dip' La Niña Increasingly Possible – What That Could Mean for Hurricane Season and Ongoing Drought

La Niña is oddly strengthening this spring and could intensify for the third year in a row going into the cooler months, with potential impacts for the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season and the massive drought in the West and Plains.

You may be more familiar with La Niña's counterpart – El Niño. These refer to the periodic cooling and warming, respectively, of Pacific Ocean water near the equator, generally east of the International Date Line.

Typically, every three to four years, water temperatures in this zone will oscillate from warmer (El Niño) to cooler (La Niña) periods, with some periods simply near average, known as neutral periods.

Right now, it's unusually cool by spring standards.

As of May 4, the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean water was 1.2 degrees Celsius cooler than average, the coolest in May in 22 years, according to tropical scientist Dr. Phil Klotzbach.

And April's anomaly – 1.1 degrees cooler than average – tied a record cool anomaly with 1950, according to NOAA.

A typical La Niña will develop in late summer or fall, peak in the winter, then weaken in spring. But this spring, it's gaining a bit of strength.

Brian Brettschneider, an Alaska-based climatologist, noted it was only the third time in the past 20 La Niñas this had happened in spring. Virginia Tech graduate student Tyler Stanfield tweeted that only previously happened before in 1955 and 1975.

'Triple-Dip' Ahead?

Given the strength of the current La Niña, the odds are increasing that it might have staying power into next winter.

According to NOAA's monthly diagnostic discussion released Thursday, there's a roughly 60% chance La Niña could hang around through February.

If this forecast holds, it would be the third straight fall and winter with a La Niña, a rare "triple-dip" after the first "scoop" developed in late summer 2020.

This has only happened two other times since 1950. Most recently, it happened from late summer 1998 through early spring 2001. Prior to that, a triple-dip occurred from late spring 1973 through spring 1976.

The forecast has trended toward a more persistent La Niña in recent months. La Niña and El Niño forecasts suffer from what's known as a spring predictability barrier – a time of year when models struggle with accurate predictions.

Once we head into the summer, there should be a clearer picture of how this may evolve.

So far, we've discussed just Pacific Ocean temperatures near the equator.

But these anomalies in ocean temperature can affect atmospheric weather patterns thousands of miles away, including near the U.S. So let's discuss some potential impacts of this stubborn La Niña.

2022 Hurricane Season Impact

While there are a number of influences on hurricane activity, this potentially persistent La Niña is not good news for the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season.

While we can't predict how many landfalls take place, La Niña appears ready to exert its influence again in 2022.

(MORE: 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook)

La Niña typically corresponds with a more active Atlantic hurricane season because the cooler waters of the equatorial Pacific Ocean end up causing less wind shear along with weaker low-level winds in the Caribbean Sea.

La Niña can also enhance rising motion over the Atlantic Basin, making it easier for storms to develop.

We also examined the two other hurricane seasons that occurred during the third year of a triple-dip La Niña since 1950.

The 2000 hurricane season generated roughly average numbers of storms (15) and hurricanes (eight). None of those hurricanes made a mainland U.S. landfall.

In 1975, only nine storms and six hurricanes formed, but Category 3 Hurricane Eloise plowed into the Florida Panhandle.

That small sample size didn't provide any useful insight into 2022.

Worsening Drought?

While not every La Niña is the same, and it's only one driver of the atmospheric pattern, La Niña usually has an influence on precipitation from fall through early spring in the U.S.

As the composite map below shows, the Pacific Northwest is typically wet in fall and winter during La Niña, while much of the South, from Southern California to the Southeast coast, tends to be dry.

Therefore, if we do have a triple-dip La Niña this fall and winter, that's a big concern for the expansive drought in the West and Plains.

California just had its driest January-through-April period in 128 years and will have to wait for the next wet season later this fall and winter for significant relief from its latest multiyear drought. Another dry rainy season would put them into a deeper water deficit next year.

The same would be true in the Desert Southwest if another snow-lacking winter occurs in the Colorado River Basin.

And another dry fall and winter would carry what is currently an extreme to exceptional drought in the Southern Plains into a critical period next spring.

So this potential triple-dip La Niña could have serious consequences on the nation's weather through early 2023.

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