Yippee, the Bitch Is Dead!

La Nina, ugly stepsister of El Nino, seems to have run her course.   A commercial weather forecasting service reports that sea surface temperatures, winds and clouds over the Pacific have returned to long-term averages.

  The [Australian] Bureau of Meteorology was reluctant to call the end of La Nina just yet, but a senior climate scientist at the bureau, Grant Beard said: ''If it's not dead yet, it's darn close.'' 

Neutral conditions should prevail for the rest of the year, Mr Beard said.
He warned that extreme short-term weather events, such as heat waves, cold snaps and big storms, were still possible. 

The present La Nina will go down as one of the most deadly and expensive ever. 

Persistent and heavy rainfall led to record flooding across eastern Australia, leading to the deaths of at least 35 people.

The Southern Ocean Oscillation is one of the most powerful influences on weather around the globe.   Scientists still haven't sorted out how these weather events interact with climate change influences.