NEW YORK, April 13 (Reuters) – A U.S. government weather forecaster on Thursday said there is still the possibility of the El Niño phenomenon developing in the late summer or fall.
The Climate Prediction Center (CPC), an agency of the National Weather Service, in its monthly forecast said neutral conditions are likely to continue through at least the spring, with increasing chances of El Niño developing toward the second half of 2017. It pegged those chances at 50 percent from August through December. This was similar to the CPC forecast in March.
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The CPC looks at dozens of model forecasts as it predicts the El Nino development.
It noted that half of the dynamical model forecasts anticipate the onset of El Nino as soon as April-June.
However because the forecasts made at this time of year are less reliable and there is lingering La Nina-like tropical wind patterns in the western half of the Pacific, the consensus forecast favours a neutral reading for the April-June period.
The chance of an El Nino fully developing rise to about 50 percent in the August to December period.
The last El Niño, a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific that typically occurs every few years, went away in 2016.
While it was in force, it caused dry weather in Malaysia and Indonesia leading to reduced palm oil produciton.
