The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) fears current global weather crises like floods will only get worse in 2016 due to the El Niño weather phenomenon.
El Niño is a weather event which causes ocean temperatures to rise, described by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration as “an oscillation of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific having important consequences for weather around the globe.”
NASA scientists believe this year’s El Niño will be strikingly similar to the chaotic 1997 weather phenomenon, according to a Tuesday report on a new satellite image. In 1997, the weather pattern caused Southern California alone to double its normal amount of rainfall, as well as floods and mudslides, according to KTLA 5 News.
Even though El Niño changes oceanic temperature toward the end of the calendar year, it affects global weather patterns for several months afterwards, thus impacting weather patterns of 2016.
A press release by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology stated, “El Niño 2015 has already created weather chaos around the world… In the United States, many of El Niño’s biggest impacts are expected in early 2016.”
The NASA press release admitted, however, “While scientists still do not know precisely how the current El Niño will affect the United States, the last large El Niño in 1997-98 was a wild ride for most of the nation.”
Flooding has impacted part of the country already, according to reports. In Missouri, “The Meramec River is going to be 4 feet over its historic level,” CNN reported Tuesday. Flooding of this nature — which usually occurs in spring — happens in winter months because of El Niño, according to an Accuweather.com report.
On Monday, the Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency.
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