El Niño may be weaker than expected

[Bob Of Burleson]

Report: El Niño not likely to be drought-buster

By Kurtis Alexander

The odds of an El Niño helping shake California out of its prolonged drought got a bit bleaker this week with a new forecast from the U.S. Climate Prediction Center.

While the agency’s monthly report still projects that summer or fall will give rise to an El Niño — the warming ocean surfaces that can tip worldwide weather — federal scientists say the phenomena is most likely to be only of moderate strength.

In Northern California, El Niños that have been weak or moderate have had little correlation with winter weather conditions while strong ones have been associated with some of the region’s wettest years. The El Niño year of 1997-98, for example, pounded San Francisco with a record 47.2 inches of rain.

“We continue to be confident that an El Niño will develop,” said Mike Halpert, acting director of the Climate Prediction Center. But “maybe it’s not looking like the ‘97-98 event that a few folks thought a few months ago.”

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[planosteve]

Those are the same clowns that were telling us last fall that we would have a warmer than normal winter in most of the country.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... ter-coming

[BigTex]

But . . . but . . . but . . . reputable science . . .