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| La Niña Hits Oklahoma |
by Sarah Mason
Cordell Elementary School, Cordell, Oklahoma
(presented at the 1999 Earthstorm Science Fair)
I'm in 6th grade and I like to
do Mesonet projects, basketball, and ballet. I'm a straight A student and enjoy
all of my classes and all of my teachers. Since my last year's Mesonet Project
was on El Niño, I wanted to expand
it to cover this year's La Niña.
I kept up with El Niño on the news and weather before and after my
project last year. In my research last year I learned that many times a La
Niña follows an El Niño. I wanted to see if our drought in 1998
was due to the El Niño changing into a La Niña. I gathered precipitation
data for the months of March 1998 through October 1998 for my hometown of Cordell,
Okla., Climate Division #4. I also gathered data on the SST (Sea Surface Temperature)
in the equatorial Pacific. I noticed there was a definite link between the
SST in the Pacific changing to a La Niña and the drought that was in
our climate division. My conclusion was that the transition between El Niño
and La Niña was when the drought in Climate Division #4 occurred.
I learned
that the ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) is the most
studied weather condition of all time. El Niño and La Niña have
an enormous amount of research to study. It was hard just trying to narrow
down what I needed to use.
My parents helped me with all the research. I would
like to thank my parents and my teacher, Mrs. Johnson. I would like to do another
Mesonet project to learn more. |
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