NOAA's National Weather Service indicates El Niño may develop as early as summer or fall 2014. Typical El Niño impacts in the U.S. include above-average rainfall in the West and suppressed hurricane activity in the East, although neither is guaranteed and largely dependent on El Niño's strength. For information on what an El Niño event might mean for your region, follow our ENSO blog and connect with us on social media.

In 2014 the first warning signs were in March, when sea surface temperatures (SSTs) began to rise abnormally. By June, above-average SSTs have been observed across the Pacific Ocean, near Indonesia, and in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.

In a 2013 Nature article, researchers reported that the frequency of El Niño events is increasing due to climate change. Satellite and sensor data indicate that El Niño conditions developing in the equatorial Pacific Ocean are similar in ways to those of May 1997, a year when the weather phenomenon was really potent.