Contact: Curtis D. Carey                                                            9/17/98
         Stephanie Kenitzer
                                        

With the effects of El Nino fading, worldwide attention is now being focused on La Nina, a climate phenomenon that is also expected to play a significant role in shaping our weather.

WHAT: Press and customer briefings sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service Southern Region will be held in two cities this month on the current development of La Nina in the tropical Pacific and the impacts on short-term and long-term weather patterns.

Forecast models, data buoys and satellite images are providing scientists with indications of a developing La Nina episode. La Nina is an abnormal cooling of the sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean that has important impacts on weather patterns around the globe. NOAA scientists, together with their academic and international partners, have made great strides in understanding La Nina and the resulting weather patterns. Better predictions of potential extreme climate episodes and their impacts could save the United States billions of dollars in damage costs if water, energy and transportation managers and farmers were able to plan and avoid or mitigate losses.

WHEN/WHERE: Two sessions are planned for various geographic areas.

Sept. 21: Atlanta, GA
Gerry Bell, research meteorologist with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, will be available for media Q's and A's and one-on-one interviews from 1:15-1:55 p.m. He will provide a formal presentation at 2:00 p.m.

Meeting will be held at:

FEMA Region IV Headquarters, 3003 Chambee-Tucker Road, Atlanta, Ga.

Sept. 23: Ft. Worth, TX
Gerry Bell, research meteorologist with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, will be available for media Q's and A's and one-on-one interviews from 1:15-1:55 p.m. He will provide a formal presentation at 2:00 p.m.

Meeting will be held at:

NWS Southern Region Headquarters Room 10A26, 819 Taylor Street, Ft. Worth, Texas.

WHO: Gerry Bell is a research meteorologist at the Climate Prediction Center. The CPC is a division of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, which is a component of the National Weather Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

BACKGROUND
The mission of the Climate Prediction Center is to make long range forecasts starting with those for six to 10 day averages, and extending to monthly and seasonal ones out to a year in advance; to provide real-time climate monitoring and products for both U.S. and global domains; to study climate fluctuations on time scales from weeks to decades in order to incorporate the effects of these in the forecasts. Through its monitoring and prediction activities, the CPC assists agencies both inside and outside the federal government in coping with climate-related problems in food supply, water resources, energy allocation and emergency management.

WEB SITE
La Nina Tutorial available on NOAA's Climate Prediction Center at http://nic.fb4.noaa.gov