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Seasonal models are predicting an El Ni\u00f1o climate pattern that could be the strongest on record, bringing with it more bouts of extreme weather.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think we\u2019re going to see weather events that we\u2019ve never seen in modern history before,\u201d WFLA-TV Chief Meteorologist and Climate Specialist Jeff Berardelli, in Tampa, Florida, warns.<\/p>\n
An El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> event is expected to develop from the middle of this year, impacting global temperature and rainfall patterns, according to the World Meteorological Organization. While the models indicate that this may be a strong event, the WMO cautioned that the models also have a harder time making accurate forecasts in the spring.<\/p>\n What is El Ni\u00f1o?<\/p>\n El Ni\u00f1o (Spanish for ‘the boy’) is a cyclical and natural warming of patches of the equatorial Pacific that then alters the world\u2019s weather patterns<\/a>. Its counterpart, La Ni\u00f1a, is marked by waters that are cooler than average. <\/p>\n Berardelli says that an El Ni\u00f1o event essentially redistributes heat on Earth. Currently, the subsurface heat in the Pacific is moving east across the ocean and ascending to the surface from the deep waters, the initial stages of El Ni\u00f1o. <\/p>\n The WMO\u2019s Global Seasonal Climate Update shows that sea-surface temperatures are rising rapidly. There is high confidence in the onset of El Ni\u00f1o, followed by further intensification in the months to follow, according to Wilfran Moufouma Okia, chief of climate prediction at WMO. <\/p>\n El Ni\u00f1o typically occurs every two to seven years and lasts around nine to 12 months, according to the WMO.<\/p>\n Why are scientists worried about this year’s El Ni\u00f1o predictions?<\/p>\n It looks like the predictive models are onto something, says California Institute for Water Resources climate scientist Daniel Swain. That is because the volume and the intensity of the subsurface warm water anomalies \u2014 or pulses of unusually warm water that are a key part of El Ni\u00f1o physics\u2014 are about as large as we\u2019ve seen in the historical record, he added. <\/p>\n