"El Niño warning puts farmers and commodities investors on alert"

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation decisively entered its cool phase in 2007. During the cool phase the odds of an El Niño event are only about half what they are during the warm phase but they do happen.

If interested, we have a few dozen posts on the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and its interplay with the PDO, drought, famine etc.

From the Financial Times:

Commodities investors and farmers are on alert after the third official warning in a week of an El Niño weather phenomenon emerging that could affect food and energy markets already reeling from extreme weather in many parts of the world.

El Niño refers to a warming of Pacific sea surface temperatures that occurs naturally every few years and can trigger drought in some parts of the world and floods in others, depending on its strength.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said on Tuesday the tropical Pacific subsurface had “warmed substantially” over the past few weeks, meaning sea surface temperatures were likely to rise in coming months.

A recent burst of westerly winds over the far western Pacific was also the strongest seen since at least 2009, the last time an El Niño developed, the bureau said.

Its warning comes a week after the US weather forecaster said there was a 50 per cent chance of an El Niño developing this summer and days after Japan’s weather bureau raised its forecasts of such an event....MORE

Our last couple El Niño posts:

El Nino Won't Come Quick Enough To Break the California Drought
"An El Niño Coming in 2014?"

The most recent plume forecast has all the models at either "El Niño Conditions", a positive anomaly of .5 degree or greater in the Nino 3.4 zone of the Pacific or a full blown El Niño which is the same anomaly but recorded in three rolling three-month periods i.e. five consecutive months: