by A. Watts, April 16, 2019 in WUWT

An El Niño that began to form last fall has matured and is now fully entrenched across the Pacific Ocean. Changes in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) brought about by an El Niño affect the atmosphere, resulting in distinctive changes in the rainfall pattern across the Pacific Basin. These changes show up as anomalies or deviations in NASA’s analysis of climatological rainfall.

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As with a traditional El Niño, the effects from a Central Pacific El Niño can still spread to the U.S. Also, clearly visible in the NASA-generated monthly average rainfall was an area of heavy rain over the southeast coast of Africa associated with the passage of Cyclone Idai, which devastated the region with torrential flooding.

For more information about El Nino, visit: https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/elnino/definitions
Learn more about NASA’s Precipitation measurements: http://pmm.nasa.gov/trmm