'El Niņo' weather expected to worsen
By Peter Dykstra
CNN
(CNN) -- The annoying El Niņo weather pattern may be worse than previously predicted and could last through February, forecasters warned Thursday.
Warming Pacific Ocean water along the equator -- a herald of El Niņo conditions -- are heightening the alert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Earlier this year, the NOAA forecast a "weak to moderate" condition -- a notch down in urgency from the outlook announced Thursday. But NOAA stressed that there is no evidence that the current El Niņo will rival the particularly bad weather it caused five years ago.
"Global impacts should generally be weaker," NOAA meteorologist Vernon Kousky said in a statement.
Thursday's assessment predicted El Niņo would affect some -- but not all -- regions of the United States, resulting in less rainfall than normal in the Ohio River Valley states and the Rocky Mountain region, more rain and more storms in the South, and higher temperatures in the north -- including southern and Southeastern Alaska.
NOAA offered no predictions specific to California, which has borne the brunt of El Niņo-related storms and mudslides in the past or the Northeastern United States. In the past, the Middle Atlantic and New England states have reaped El Niņo benefits, with warmer winters and reduced home-heating costs.
Monitoring buoys
NOAA's network of monitoring buoys have detected temperatures more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit above average in the waters of the Tropical Pacific Ocean near the South American coast. When those waters warm -- usually about twice a decade -- they trigger a chain reaction of temporary changes in air and water currents over much of the globe.
The 1997-98 El Niņo caused billions of dollars in storm damage on the U.S. West Coast, and triggered catastrophic drought-related fires in Indonesia and Brazil.
"El Niņo" was so christened centuries ago by Peruvian fishermen, who noted warming waters and a change in their fish catch in certain years around Christmas, the celebration of the birth of "El Niņo," the Christ child.
