According to some recent climate reports, the US Climate Prediction Center thinks next winter could be an El Nino year. – Our friends over at Tahoeloco.com have this to add The center has issued an “El Nino Watch” because conditions are favorable for a shift from nuetral status to El Nino between June and August. Sea-surface sea temperatures, the center reports, increased for the fifth consecutive month in May, with above-average temperatures extending across the equatorial Pacific Ocean by the end of the month. The latest weekly readings ranged between +0.4C to +0.5-°C in all four Ni!±o regions. Average temperatures in the upper 300 meters of the ocean also continued to increase. These surface and subsurface changes typically precede the development of El Ni!±o. One caveat: the center’s statistical models continue to predict the persistence of neutral condiitons through the summer, neither El Nino nor La Nina. But other forecasting tools, known as “dynamic models,” suggest otherwise. So the combination of current observations, recent trends and the dynamic model results add up to a forecast of “conditions favorable” for a change to El Nino.
