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| red indicates warmer water moving west to east |
If global warming was not enough to disturb your weather, try an El Niño event on top of it. US meteorologists said the effect arrived in April but characterized it as "weak". Australian scientists disagree saying their models suggests the the event could strengthen from September onwards bringing severe weather, mostly in the form of intense precipitation in some areas (US) and intense drought (Australia) in others, around the globe. Australia's manager of climate monitoring and prediction at the Bureau of Meteorology told reporters, "This is a proper El Niño effect, not a weak one". Models, which use telemetry from ocean buoys measuring winds, currents and temperatures, can predict the occurrence but not predict the intensity, duration or regions that will be affected. By summer scientists should be able to predict this year's El Niño before it has made its major impact in winter. Warming of the Pacific Ocean near the equator
[map above] that affects the atmosphere's temperature and wind patterns cycles every two years to seven years. One positive aspect of El Niño is that there are usually fewer North Atlantic hurricanes during a season.
