The broad swath of warmer-than-usual seawater is spreading and deepening. The two largest concentrations are off the coast of Peru, where water is 4 degrees Centigrade warmer than usual, and just west of Vancouver and Seattle — 3 degrees warmer.
If this El Niño continues to grow, it could surpass the modern record-setting 1997-98 El Niño event, which inundated the Bay Area and the rest of California for months, causing flooding, mudslides and subsidences, and heavy snowfalls in the sierras .
The latest data from the National Weather Service's North American Multi-Model Ensemble indicates a greater-than 95 percent chance of a strong El Niño and a greater-than 60 percent chance of the strongest El Niño on record.