Visualization of Pacific ocean temperatures shows El Niño brewing, heralding possible winter weather impacts

This animation shows how sea surface temperatures have departed from the long-term average, from August through early October 2018. (Animation by climate.gov; data from NOAA’s Environmental Visualization Lab.) It's still not here yet, but El Niño sure looks like it's coming. In its latest forecast, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center says there is a 70 to 75 percent chance that El Niño will form "in the next couple of months and continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2018-19." If the forecast turns out to be correct, the El Niño could influence weather around the world. El Niño is typically associated with an extended Pacific jet stream and amplified storm track, boosting the odds of wetter than average conditions across the southern tier of U.S. states. Should things play out this way (and they may not!), it could bring at least some relief for parts of the drought-stricken Southwest. One of the factors behind the Climate Prediction Center's increasing confidence that El Niño is coming can be seen in the visualization above. It shows how sea surface temperatures have evolved each week from August through early October — specifically, how those temperatures have differed from the 1985-2012 average. Pay particular attention to the equator off the coast of South America and extending west to the middle of the Pacific. See the blue tending to give way to red? This is indicative of warming surface waters. As Emily Becker, a NOAA research scientist, puts it in a post at the ENSO Blog: