GENEVA (Reuters) - There is a 75-80 percent chance of a weak El Nino weather pattern forming by February and a slightly lower likelihood that it will continue through the northern hemisphere winter of 2018-19, the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday. The last El Nino, a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific that typically occurs every few years, last happened from 2015/2016 and led to weather-related crop damage, fires and flash floods. “The forecast El Niño is not expected to be as powerful as the event in 2015-2016, which was linked with droughts, flooding and coral bleaching in different parts of the world,” Maxx Dilley, director of WMO’s Climate Prediction and Adaptation branch, said in a statement. “Even so, it can still significantly affect rainfall and temperature patterns in many regions, with important consequences to agricultural and food security sectors, and for management of water resources and public health, and it may combine with long-term climate change to boost 2019 global temperatures,” he said.
The World Meteorological Organization and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology predict a weak El Niño forming within three months.