Regional El Niño Impacts and Outlooks Assessments
A strong El Niño event has been affecting weather around the globe, and it will continue to do so through Northern Hemisphere winter 2015–2016 according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. El Niño can have a wide variety of effects including lowering or raising temperatures, increasing or decreasing precipitation, extending or reducing drought conditions, enhancing or lowering risk for tropical cyclones, and increasing the potential for coral bleaching.
The evolution, strength, and impacts of individual El Niño events vary, in some cases greatly, throughout their duration. This makes constant monitoring and awareness extremely important for decision makers across multiple sectors. To help you better understand how the current El Niño may impact where you live, NOAA has developed a variety of regional El Niño Impacts and Outlooks Assessments:
- Eastern Region
- Great Lakes Region
- Midwest Region
- Missouri Basin Region
- Pacific Region
- Southeast Region
- Southern Plains Region
- Western Region
A climate product discussion, which highlights El Niño impacts and outlooks among other topics, is also available for the Alaska Region.
Scientists characterize El Niño events by the unusually warm ocean temperatures that are produced in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific. The El Niño Southern Oscillation, also known as ENSO, is a periodic fluctuation in sea surface temperature (El Niño) and the air pressure of the overlying atmosphere (Southern Oscillation) across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Earth typically experiences El Niño conditions every two-to-five years.
For more information about the El Niño Southern Oscillation, see:
