(Reuters) -There is a more than 90% chance that El Niño conditions will continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2023-24, a U.S. government weather forecaster said on Thursday.
Forecasters expect the continued growth of El Niño through the autumn, peaking this winter with moderate-to-strong intensity, the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) said.
In June, a weak El Niño was associated with above-average sea surface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific Ocean, the U.S. CPC said.
The El Niño phenomenon is a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific, which can lead to crop damage, flash floods or fires.
“The emergence of an El Niño weather event threatens to disrupt the already uncertain outlook for commodity markets. The event’s impact can vary by region and duration, but it can’t be ignored,” ANZ analysts said in a note.
(Reporting by Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru; editing by Barbara Lewis)
