Predictions for the eventual strength of the developing El Nino are heating up even more than the water off the coast of Peru and Ecuador. Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, says it could be a “Godzilla,” surpassing the record-setting event in 1997-98, according to this NPR story. Most climatologists are a little more hesitant to use such a sensational description, which seems more like clickbait than a sober scientific assessment. But the prediction from NOAA is that this may in fact break the old record.
The Los Angeles Times has a nice animation of the evolution of the warm water in the eastern Pacific Ocean in their story at https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-el-nino-20150813-htmlstory.html.
What does this mean for the weather and climate around the world in the coming months? CNN provides an explanation of El Nino and a look back at 1997 here. CNN says “The prospect of a record-breaking El Niño is worrying, given that the 1997 edition created conditions that killed an estimated 23,000 people and caused as much as $45 billion in damage.” General patterns of climate changes in an El Nino are well known and have been discussed previously in this blog, but each event is different and impacts can vary across the globe. We’ll be able to watch it develop in the coming months, since NOAA predicts a better than 90 percent chance it will stay here through the winter.
