This coming El Nino could be a monster. What would it mean for California?

"There is now an 82% chance that El Niño is likely to emerge over the next few months, up from the 61% chance estimated a month ago. And there's now a 96% chance that the climate pattern - characterized by warmer ocean waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific - will be in force this winter, the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center said Thursday."

"It remains to be seen how strong this iteration of El Niño could be. There's up to a 37% chance that it will be " very strong " by the end of the year, up from a forecast of 25% issued last month. There's also a 30% chance El Niño will be "strong," a 22% chance it'll be "moderate," and a 9% chance it'll be "weak," forecasters said."

"A number of forecasting models suggest "a pretty substantial El Niño" will come, according to Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. "It's got a pretty good chance of being well above the El Niño threshold in a sort of modest way, and then some possibility that it's far above," he said earlier this week."

"Just three weeks ago, the World Meteorological Organization said it saw a clear shift in sea-surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, an indication that El Niño's arrival is imminent. "There is high confidence in the onset of El Niño, followed by further intensification in the months that follow," Wilfran Moufouma-Okia, the organization's chief of climate prediction, said in a statement. "Models indicate that this may be a strong event.""

An El Niño is becoming more likely to form in the Pacific Ocean, with an 82% chance of emergence over the next few months. The climate pattern is expected to be in effect this winter with a 96% likelihood, driven by warmer ocean waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. Forecasts show a 37% chance the event will be very strong by the end of the year, along with 30% for strong, 22% for moderate, and 9% for weak. Forecasting models suggest a substantial El Niño may arrive. A separate assessment reported a clear shift in equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperatures, indicating onset is imminent and may intensify, potentially into a strong event.

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