'Godzilla El Niño' may be coming to California, latest forecast suggests; could bring 'extreme rainfall'

Updated
Forecasts Suggest 'Godzilla El Nino' for California
Forecasts Suggest 'Godzilla El Nino' for California


LOS ANGELES (KTLA) -- As El Niño continued to strengthen in the Pacific Ocean, climatologists on Thursday suggested in the wake of a newly released report that it has the potential to become the most powerful ever recorded and could bring "extreme rainfall" to drought-stricken California.

"Everything now is going to the right way for El Niño," Patzert said. "If this lines up to its potential, this thing can bring a lot of floods, mudslides and mayhem."

All computer models were predicting a strong El Niño to peak in late fall or early winter, according to the report, which was released by the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center.

Click through for more photos of the effects El Niño is having across the globe:

It has a more than 90 percent chance of continuing through the Northern Hemisphere in winter, and a roughly 85 percent chance of lasting until early spring.

The August report stated that "forecaster consensus unanimously favors a strong El Niño," with peak 3-month-average sea surface temperatures that could exceed 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit degrees above normal in the Niño 3.4 region.

If the forecast turns out to be accurate, "it will place the 2015 event among the strongest El Niños," Emily Becker of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric and Administration wrote on NOAA's website Climate.gov. The records date back until 1950, she said.

Becker dubbed the current El Niño "Bruce Lee" back in July because of its strength.

Bill Patzert, a climatologist for the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge, told the Los Angeles Times that it had the potential to be the "Godzilla El Niño."

He added El Niño's signal in the ocean was "stronger" in August than it was in the summer of 1997 when the most powerful El Niño on record developed.

He described the current mass of warm water in the ocean as being "bigger" and "deeper" than it was at the same point of the 1997 event.

"Everything now is going to the right way for El Niño," Patzert told the Times. "If this lines up to its potential, this thing can bring a lot of floods, mudslides and mayhem."

The 1997 El Niño double the rainfall total in Southern California the following winter, the newspaper reported.

But that much rain caused a host of problems, as storms in early 1998 brought flooding and mudslides that left 17 people dead and caused more than half a billion dollars in damage to the state.

The State Department of Water weighed in after the report, stating in a news release that the event would not be enough to end the California drought, which is headed into its fifth year.

"California cannot count on potential El Niño conditions to halt or reverse drought conditions," state climatologist Michael Anderson said in the release. "Historical weather data shows us that at best, there is a 50/50 chance of having a wetter winter. Unfortunately, due to shifting climate patterns, we cannot even be that sure."

El Niño occurs roughly every two to seven years, according to NOAA. It is a climate pattern in the tropical Pacific that results from the interaction between the ocean's surface layers and overlying atmosphere.

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