The so-called “Godzilla El Niño” could rival the record event of the late 90s when powerful storms caused widespread mudslides, flooding, and destruction.
Homes are seen perched on an El Nino-battered hillside on Feb. 25, 1998, in Pacifica, California.
George Nikitin / ASSOCIATED PRESS
A new report released Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stated there is "a greater than 90% chance that El Niño will continue through Northern Hemisphere" this winter. There's an 85% chance the weather system will last even longer and go into next spring.
And it won't just be any El Niño. Robbie Munroe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, California, told BuzzFeed News that current projections show the pool of warm water in the Pacific could be the strongest ever observed.
"It'd put it basically into the top five El Niño's we've ever seen since the 50s," Munroe said.
NASA climatologist Bill Patzert told BuzzFeed News last week that the intensifying El Niño is the most powerful he has seen since the record-breaking episode of the late 1990s.
Weather experts are basing their projections on the surface temperatures of water along the equator in the Pacific Ocean. As of August 5, temperatures in the eastern Pacific were about 2 degrees Celsius warmer than normal and 1 degree warmer than normal in the central Pacific. As the temperatures rise farther west, it fuels an El Niño.
"It basically provides more energy for the atmosphere," Patzert added, "and with that in place any storms that might come by can tap into that energy."
The most powerful El Niño on record happened in the late 1990s, Munroe said, when sea surface temperatures increased by about 2.3 celsius. According to the new NOAA report "the forecaster consensus unanimously favors a strong El Niño" with temperatures around two degrees above normal.
All of which is to say, this year's event will likely rival the record setting El Niño of 1997-1998.
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1J7xxQr
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