El Niño intensifying to rival strongest on record
The present El Niño event, on the cusp of attaining "strong" intensity, has a chance to become the most powerful on record.
The present El Niño event, on the cusp of attaining "strong" intensity, has a chance to become the most powerful on record.
The event - defined by the expanding, deepening pool of warmer-than-normal ocean water in the tropical Pacific - has steadily grown stronger since the spring.
The presence of a strong El Niño almost ensures that 2015 will become the warmest year on record for Earth and will have ripple effects on weather patterns all over the world.
A strong El Niño event would likely lead to enhanced rainfall in California this fall and winter, a quieter than normal Atlantic hurricane season, a warmer than normal winter over large parts of the United States, and a very active hurricane and typhoon season in the Pacific.
Some of these El Niño-related effects have already manifested themselves. Frequent and persistent bursts of wind from the west, counter to the prevailing easterly direction, have helped this year's El Niño sustain itself and grow. Warm water from the western Pacific has sloshed eastward, piling up in the central and eastern part of the basin.
The sprawling area of warm waters has proven to be a boon for Pacific tropical cyclone activity, near record levels through midsummer. Through a positive feedback mechanism, these cyclones have likely helped to reinforce the westerly push of warm waters, Slate's Eric Holthaus reported.
The 2015 El Niño event is now neck-and-neck with the record-setting event of 1997-1998 in terms of its midsummer intensity.
That 1997-1998 event was notorious for its winter flash floods and mudslides in California.
Michael Ventrice, a meteorologist for the Weather Company, said the atmospheric footprint of this year's event - given the time of year - is statistically extremely rare and has a less than one in 1,000 chance of occurrence.
Perhaps hinting at an El Niño rivaling history, models have been trending stronger with their forecast month after month after month - as they absorb more data reflecting the true state of the current event and how it's evolving.