El Ni\u00f1o has officially arrived, the National Weather Service declared Thursday, and the latest edition is shaping up to be particularly potent.<\/p>\n
The pattern developed over the past month and is expected to strengthen throughout the year, with the weather service\u2019s Climate Prediction Center assessing a 63% chance of a \u201cvery strong\u201d El Ni\u00f1o November through January that would rank among the most powerful on record going back to 1950.<\/p>\n
Stronger El Ni\u00f1os, which are characterized by warmer ocean waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, \u201ccan more significantly tilt the odds in favor of expected outcomes,\u201d the Climate Prediction Center said. <\/p>\n
For Southern California, that could mean rain \u2014 and lots of it. <\/p>\n
A typical El Ni\u00f1o is linked with higher-than-average precipitation, according to the National Weather Service. Of the three \u201cvery strong\u201d El Ni\u00f1os over the last 75 years, two of them, 1982-83 and 1997-98, brought huge and destructive amounts of precipitation to the Golden State.<\/p>\n
And a \u201cstrong\u201d El Ni\u00f1o in 2023-24 coincided with a pretty wet year<\/a> for Southern California, with downtown L.A. receiving 155% of its typical annual rainfall. That February, there was record precipitation and a memorable five straight days of rain<\/a> that triggered hundreds of mudslides in L.A. alone. Dozens of homes and buildings were damaged by debris flow, including 15 homes that were red-tagged.<\/p>\n But the connection between El Ni\u00f1o and a soaked Southern California is not a certainty.<\/p>\n The 2015-16 El Ni\u00f1o, while strong in the equatorial Pacific and responsible for consequential weather elsewhere in the world, didn\u2019t bring the anticipated rainfall effects to Southern California, failing to snap the state out of a punishing five-year drought<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cEven very strong El Ni\u00f1o events do not lead to the expected impact everywhere,\u201d the Climate Prediction Center said. <\/p>\n