Forecasters in the UAE have placed the odds at 99 percent that the ocean-warming phenomenon known as El Niño will remain in place from August through December of this year, according to the newest seasonal assessment from the National Center of Meteorology (NCM).
That assessment rests on readings from the Niño 3.4 zone of the Pacific, the stretch of ocean the NCM treats as its main gauge for gauging how the pattern might reach the country. The index there currently sits at 1.2°C, a level that classifies the event as a moderate El Niño.
Support for that classification comes from the behavior of Pacific waters over recent weeks. Sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern portions of the ocean have held above their usual marks, while the western Pacific has run cooler than average — a combination the NCM describes as being in line with an ongoing El Niño.
El Niño itself refers to a periodic shift in ocean and atmospheric behavior along the equatorial Pacific. Its reach extends far beyond that region, altering weather across much of the globe when it takes hold.
For the UAE specifically, the NCM projects that both thermometer readings and rainfall totals through the five-month stretch will land somewhere between typical seasonal levels and slightly above them. The center adds that whatever influence the pattern carries is likely to grow more pronounced as the period draws toward its close rather than at its start.
