February 15, 1999
On your birthday, the Earth completed another orbit — 584 million miles traveled since your last celebration.
La Niña Earth
Birthday · February 15, 1999
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APOD published February 15, 1999. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
La Niña is a temporary climate change caused by unusually cold water in the central Pacific Ocean. Cold water topping an unusually low sea level is shown as purple in the above false-color picture taken by the orbiting TOPEX/Poseidon satellite in mid-January. Such cold water tends to deflect winds around it, changing the course of weather systems locally and the nature of weather patterns globally. This year's La Niña appears to have weakened over the past few months, indicating a slow return to more normal seasonal weather. The full effects of the preceding El Niño and the present La Niña are still under study.