After four years of devastating drought in California, the good news is we have a large El Niño brewing in the oceans! As Pacific Ocean temperatures continue to warm and trade winds shift, federal scientists are now saying that the El Niño weather event that’s percolating could be one of the strongest on record. Bring it on!
Scientists say the conditions are lining up in ways not seen since the winter of 1997-98, when downpours filled reservoirs and sent rivers raging during the last major El Niño. The chances are now “greater than 90 percent” that El Niño conditions that began in March will remain through this winter, according to the monthly El Niño report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And that is up from 85 percent last month and 50 percent from four months ago.
Strong El Niños, which occur when the Pacific Ocean is the warmest, have historically been linked to wet weather in California and South America — and droughts in Australia and Asia