El Nino pattern could emerge:

Discovery

The El Nino weather pattern, associated with warmer and wetter weather than usual that may give rise to damaging conditions, could emerge by the 2018-19 Northern Hemisphere winter, with neutral conditions expected to prevail through November this year, a US government weather forecaster said on Thursday.

The last El Nino warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific that typically occurs every few years, was linked to crop damage, fires and flash floods in 2016.

The possibility of a transition to El Nino weather-pattern is nearing 50 percent by the 2018-19 Northern Hemisphere winter, the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) said in its monthly forecast. El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) neutral conditions are favored through September-November this year, it added. ENSO-neutral refers to those periods in which neither El Nino nor La Nina is present, according to CPC. (RTRS)