Forecast discussion calls it a pineapple express, typical for December any year.
I didn't see any mention of the words "pineapple express" in the several NWS forecast discussions over the last day. Where did you see that?
Anyway, here's an even better link to the Seattle forecast discussion, it displays in a much nicer font (at least on my browser) and gives access to the last 10 previous versions instead of just 5:
www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod....=sew&sid=sew&pil=afd
You can get the forecast discussion for any other western NWS office by substituting the appropriate office code in the URL, e.g. for Portland and Spokane:
www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod....=pqr&sid=pqr&pil=afd
www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod....=otx&sid=otx&pil=afd
[hr]To answer the original question ("What happened to La Nina?"): Nothing happened to it, it's still there and ongoing. Why panic needlessly? The ski season is off to a much better than normal start, snow depths remain well above average throughout the Pacific Northwest -- what more can we ask for?
And La Nina conditions (meaning cooler-than-normal ocean temperatures in the central Pacific) continue to strengthen. The current ENSO forecast (updated weekly) can be found at:
www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_...advisory/index.shtml
However, La Nina is no guarantee of "only" cold storms throughout the winter here. La Nina increases the likelihood of cold storms and longer sustained storm cycles, but there will always be some warm wet storms in any Pacific Northwest winter, including La Nina winters. The weather is generally quite variable here, it will shift rapidly between warmer and colder storm cycles during most winters, as it will do over the next week.
