La Nina Not El Nino Expected This Summer In United States [Video]

The northern hemisphere will not experience El Nino this summer, reports the Climate Prediction Center (CPC), but it will see La Nina.

The differences between the two are severe, but La Nina isn't as catastrophic as El Nino has historically been over the last few years.

The CPC is under the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The CPC's report is based on conditions over the past four weeks, and said a small number of its models predict "weak" La Nina conditions, but the majority favor neutral conditions over the 2013 summer.

A CPC report in May said that El Nino was unlikely to cause damage to the northern hemisphere this year.

El Nino heats up tropical oceans in East Asia, which in turn sends warm air into America and South America, which leads to flooding after heavy rains from the moist air.

But La Nina caused severe damage in 2011, when it cooled waters off the equatorial Pacific and was blamed for wrecking crops in South America and a severe drought that struck Texas.

Basically, if you're getting confused by the differences, La Nina is a lowering of sea surface temperatures and El Nino is a rise in oceanic temperatures.

Because they're the inverse of each other, La Nina tends to produce a drought in the midwestern portion of the United States, and El Nino tends to produce flooding.

Both weather phenomenon produce extreme weather patterns across the northern hemisphere that affect crops and food supplies.

Here's a video from 2010 that explains the differences in more detail.

And here's a documentary about the life and times of El Nino: