Chinese forecasters predict El Nino could start as soon as July or August
Giving weather pattern a 70 per cent to 80 per cent chance of starting this summer.
Chinese meteorological experts are forecasting that an El Nino weather pattern widely predicted to manifest this year could start to affect the country as early as next month, and may hurt domestic rice and corn production.
El Nino, a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, can disrupt weather across the entire ocean region. It has previously triggered flooding in China’s southern rice-growing regions and caused droughts in corn-producing areas of the north.
Hong Kong Observatory said last month that the weather anomaly could distort the territory’s weather by delaying the arrival of typhoons as well as increasing rainfall in the winter and spring.
“According to our forecasts, we are basically sure that El Nino will happen, and the key issue right now is how strong it will be,” said Ding Yihui, a climate change adviser to the China Meteorological Administration, according to a transcript of a meeting posted on the administration’s website.
Zheng Fei, a researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, estimated at the same meeting that the probability of an El Nino striking was more than 70 per cent for July and 80 per cent for August.
The forecasts from China are in line with those in Australia, the United States and Japan.