SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s weather bureau said the threshold to declare El Nino has not yet been crossed, despite the World Meteorological Organization announcing the weather pattern had emerged in the tropical Pacific for the first time in seven years.
El Nino, a warming of water surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean, is linked to extreme weather conditions, from tropical cyclones to heavy rainfall to severe droughts.
The World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday said the El Nino weather pattern had returned.
On Wednesday Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) maintained its El Nino alert, which implies a 70% chance of it developing, but said conditions did not yet meet a full declaration.
“The set of indicators we have used haven’t passed the threshold just yet so we still haven’t declared (El Nino),” said Karl Braganza, the BOM’s National Manager of Climate Services.
El Nino is associated with drier weather in Australia’s east and southeast, which could hit wheat production in the world’s second-largest exporter of the grain.
(Reporting by Lewis Jackson; editing by John Stonestreet)
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