Australia’s weather bureau is not convinced that a La Nina weather pattern is forming that could change rainfall patterns and bring wilder weather to parts of the Americas, Asia and Oceania, affecting crop production, a senior climatologist said.

La Nina, and its analogue, El Nino, are caused by the cooling or warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific.

The former typically brings greater rainfall to eastern Australia, Southeast Asia and India with drier weather in the Americas, while El Nino does the reverse. Both can also lead to hurricanes and flooding.

Models forecasting the weather patterns typically converge on a strong signal around this time of year but there is currently a lot of variation, said Felicity Gamble of Australia’s Bureau o

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