By examining images of sea surface temperatures under La Niña conditions vs. El Niño conditions it strikes me that sea temperature rise during the La Niña is spread widely across the Southwest Pacific and produces a gentler warming, like a low simmer. Gentler impacts on global conditions, principally in broad precipitation.

With the El Niño spawned close along the Peruvian coast, the waters of the eastern and central Pacific warm more dramatically. This body of warm water produces a low pressure convection cell. The Pacific Jet Stream is pulled further South and strengthens. It blows along the latitude of hurricane formation in the Atlantic and suppresses hurricane formation. The Gulf Stream remains warm and the U.S. East Coast swelters during the summer months.

Queue the histrionics.

La Niña (Sept. 2022) vs. typical El Niño (Oct. 2015).