El Niño's Arrival: Implications for Global Weather Patterns.

El Niño, a climate pattern that can bring warmer temperatures and extreme weather conditions, has arrived and is expected to strengthen over the winter. It generally causes drier conditions in Australia and Southeast Asia, and wetter and warmer conditions in the Americas. A moderate to strong El Niño in the fall and winter correlates with wetter-than-average conditions from southern California to the Gulf Coast, and drier-than-average conditions in the Pacific Northwest and Ohio Valley. While the exact connection between climate change and El Niño is not yet known, El Niño does exacerbate the conditions that climate change is already causing on a regional basis.