NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) – A U.S. government weather forecaster on Thursday said that previously predicted La Niña conditions have arrived and are slightly favored to persist into the Northern Hemisphere winter 2016-17.
The Climate Prediction Center (CPC), an agency of the National Weather Service, in a monthly forecast said it observed La Niña conditions during October and sees a 55 percent chance they will persist through the winter.
Last month, the agency pegged the chance of La Nina developing this fall at 70 percent.
La Niña will likely raise temperatures and reduce precipitation in the southern United States and do the opposite across the northern part of the country, the CPC said.
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Japan’s weather bureau repeated in its monthly forecast on Tuesday that it estimated that there was a 60 percent possibility that the La Nina weather pattern would last through the winter months of December to February.
There was a 40 percent chance that it would return to normal conditions during the winter, it added.
