The odds of a coming El Niño keep increasing

Further evidence that there will be an El Niño weather even later this year comes from the latest joint report from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society. These US bodies have joined Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology in moving their prediction to an Alert with the chance that El Niño increases during the remainder of the year now exceeding 65%. Their summary says:

The model predictions of ENSO for this summer and beyond are indicating an increased likelihood of El Niño compared with those from last month. Most of the models indicate that ENSO-neutral (Niño-3.4 index between -0.5oC and 0.5oC) will persist through part of the remainder of the Northern Hemisphere spring 2014, most likely transitioning to El Niño during the summer. There remains uncertainty as to exactly when El Niño will develop and an even greater uncertainty as to how strong it may become. This uncertainty is related to the inherently lower forecast skill of the models for forecasts made in the spring. While ENSO-neutral is favored for Northern Hemisphere spring, the chance of El Niño increases during the remainder of the year, exceeding 65% during the summer

See earlier stores by the Owl on this subject at The El Niño danger that the politicians and the media are ignoring and Finding a new excuse for English soccer failure – blame it on El Niño