El Nino officially declared for 2015

Just when everyone had pretty much written it off, the El Niño event that has been nearly a year in the offing finally emerged in February and could last through the spring and summer, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.

This isn’t the blockbuster, 1998 repeat El Niño many anticipated when the first hints of an impending event emerged about a year ago. This El Niño has just crept across the official threshold, so it won’t be a strong event.

“We’re basically declaring El Niño,” NOAA forecaster Michelle L’Heureux said. “It’s unfortunate we can’t declare a weak El Niño.”

In part because of its weakness, as well as its unusual timing, the El Niño isn’t expected to have much impact on U.S. weather patterns, nor bring much relief for drought-stricken California.

But forecasters say it could nudge weather patterns in other areas of the globe, especially if it persists or intensifies, and could boost global temperatures—following a 2014 that was already the hottest year on record.

“It does tilt the odds toward warmth,” L’Heureux said.

The difference a year makes

Forecasters with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society(IRI) at Columbia University first raised the alert early last year that an El Niño might be taking shape. They based it on a subsurface plume of warm water, called a Kelvin wave, surging from west to east across the tropical Pacific. (It was this large plume that drew comparisons to the monster El Niño of 1998, which caused deluges and flooding in many parts of the world and significantly amped up global temperatures. 1998 is still the only 20th century year among the top 10 warmest.)

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