Drought: NOAA forecasts ‘significant and strengthening’ El Niño

El Niño conditions are present in the equatorial Pacific Ocean and that could mean a healthy amount of rain and snow for California this winter. El Nino in 1997 was the strongest on record, measuring 2.3 on forecasters’ scales.

In its latest monthly update, federal scientists say a consensus now unanimously favors a strong El Niño, and they point to rising ocean temperatures, weakening easterly winds, and other atmospheric factors as evidence for the prediction.

But Halpert warned that increased rain is not guaranteed.

Climate scientists say this year’s El Nino could rival the intensity of the record-setting 1997 El Nino season, which caused weather-related havoc around the world including mudslides and flooding in Southern California.

During the last four weeks, equatorial sea surface temperatures were above average across the central and eastern Pacific, with the largest anomalies in the eastern Pacific, the report says, boding well for a wet winter.

Analysts are factoring the El Nino into their natural gas price forecasts.

A warm summer could push prices higher, but the upside would be limited by low Appalachian coal prices due to recent coal-fired power plant retirements and an extended period of market share loss to cheaper gas, the analysts said.

Climatologists are putting greater bets on an El Nino and extending its likelihood into next spring. Thanks to El Nino, a warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that affects global weather, less rain fell to help refill Puerto Rico’s La Plata reservoir, as well as La Plata river in the central island community of Naranjito.