Storms and Floods

Tropical Storms

No current tropical storms.

NewsBytes:

Siberia - A total of 34,000 people have been evacuated over the period of floods in the Siberian Federal District, Eduard Chizhov, Deputy Minister of Russia's Emergencies Ministry (EMERCOM), told a press conference on Thursday, according to TASS news agency reports. He said 18,000 houses had been flooded.

El Niño

NOAA's Climate Prediction Centre (CPC) puts the odds of an El Niño at 70 percent this month and 80 percent during the fall and winter. But it's too soon to officially declare an El Niño, because the ocean and atmosphere are sending mixed signals, the CPC said in its monthly El Niño outlook, released today.

Currently, wind and rainfall patterns don't quite match with a maturing El Niño. As warmer water moves eastward, so do the clouds and thunderstorms associated with it. Tropical rainfall patterns still haven't shifted away from Indonesia as expected during an El Niño year, the CPC said. Trade winds haven't slowed down yet, either, though the winds usually don't weaken until fall during an El Niño.

However, even though the atmosphere isn't showing strong signs of an El Niño, ocean temperatures have crossed the threshold that forecasters typically use to define an El Niño, the CPC said. Its latest measurements peg temperature anomalies between 1.1 and 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 and 1.6 degrees Celsius), above the 0.9 F (0.5 C) threshold.

The missing atmospheric response to this warm water makes for a tricky forecast. The ocean is clearly heading toward an El Niño, but the atmosphere says "conditions neutral," the CPC said.