El Ni o Weather Pattern Returns OLYMPIA, WA (N3) - Government scientists have announced that the El Ni o weather pattern is returning. KPLU's Tom Banse reports on what conditions that typically brings to our region.

For more information:
NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Full story:
Scientists at the federal government's Climate Prediction Center have detected significant warming in the tropical waters of the Eastern Pacific. Periodic warming in that vast body of ocean has a cascading effect on world weather known as El Ni o. Here in the Northwest, the biggest change El Ni o usually brings is a milder winter. This according to University of Washington atmospheric scientist Cliff Mass.

Cliff Mass: "Snowpack tends to be less in the mountains. We also tend to have less snow in the lowlands, like in Seattle. Also in terms of precipitation, we tend not to get those Pineapple Expresses' in El Ni o years."

Mass says the pattern often splits the storm track as it approaches the West Coast. Wild weather flows further south into California and further north into Canada and Alaska.
Scientists at NOAA expect this El Ni o to strengthen into the fall and last through this coming winter. Our last El Nino was in 2006. I'm Tom Banse in Olympia.
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