CALIFORNIA - Recent announcements from weather forecasters show that El Niño is gaining strength and will almost certainly persist into 2024.

As the LA Times reported, the system arrived in June and has been steadily gaining strength. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts a 95 percent chance that it will persist into at least the first three months of 2024, with the odds of the system becoming a “strong” El Niño increasing to 71 percent.

Climate scientists like the University of California, Los Angeles’ Daniel Swain say this could result in a soggy January, February, and March across Central and Southern California.

As the source went on to note, forecasts currently show equal chances of wetter- or drier-than-normal conditions between October and December in most of California, according to Scott Handel, a meteorologist with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

“Given the strong El Niño event likely to occur this winter, we are leaning toward above-normal precipitation, slightly, for the Los Angeles area this winter,” Handel told the LA Times.

Data from previous El Niño events demonstrate its unpredictability. A strong El Niño in 1957–58 resulted in above-average precipitation across California, as did very strong El Niños in 1982–83 and 1997–98.

ANUK will continue to bring updates regarding El Niño, so stick around.