Can't Resist La Niña!

Apparently the Pacific Ocean's abrupt departure from La Niña conditions last May was only temporary: it's slipping back into a La Niña state:

Indicators of a re-emerging La Niña event have been consolidating in the equatorial Pacific over the past several weeks. Pacific Ocean temperatures have slowly cooled through the austral spring and are now at La Niña levels. Key atmospheric signals such as trade winds, cloud and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), are also close to, or have exceeded, La Niña thresholds.

Well, dagnabit, I was hoping that the Texas drought would end soon, but if La Niña wants to persist, then that happy day may be farther down the road than I thought.

Nevertheless, we might be partly-insulated from these events. Water temperatures off a portion of the west Mexico and Gulf of Mexico coasts are a little higher than normal, which should prove helpful for juicing up the air:

The current state of the drought is:

And the official outlook remains grim:

Latest Seasonal Assessment - The Drought Outlook for October 20, 2011 through January 2012 reflects forecasts and outlooks for periods ranging from the next few days to the next few months, La Nina composites for the November – January period, and, to a lesser extent, composites of the small set of La Niña events that immediately followed a previous La Niña episode. Across the southern tier of states and in the central Plains, drought is expected to persist and expand into adjacent areas. Except for wetness being favored in Colorado and northern New Mexico for the 6-10 day period, all tools are in remarkable concert, pointing toward drier than normal conditions. Thus, this is a high confidence forecast.